Norman Davies

Norman Davies, Warsaw (Poland), 7 October 2004

Ivor Norman Richard Davies Fellow of the British Academy (born 8 June 1939 to Richard and Elizabeth Davies in Bolton, Lancashire) is an English historian of Anglo-Welsh descent, noted for his publications on the history of Poland, Europe and the History of the United Kingdom & Ireland.

Academic career

Davies studied in Grenoble, France (1957-1958). He was a disciple of A. J. P. Taylor at Magdalen College, Oxford where he earned a B.A. (history, with honors) in 1962. He earned an M.A. (1966) at University of Sussex. He studied in Perugia, Italy. He intended to study for a PhD in the Soviet Union, but was denied an entry visa. Instead, he went to Kraków to study at the Jagiellonian University and do research on the Polish-Soviet war. As this war was denied in the official communist Polish historiography of that time, he was obliged to change the title of his dissertation to The British Foreign Policy towards Poland, 1919-20. After obtaining a Ph.D. (1968) in Kraków, the English text appeared under the title White Eagle, Red Star. The Polish-Soviet War 1919-20 in 1972.

From 1971, Davies taught Polish history at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) of the University of London, where he was professor from 1985 to 1996. Currently, he is Supernumary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. Throughout his career, Davies has lectured in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Poland, and in most of the rest of Europe as well.

Stanford University controversially denied him a tenured faculty position in 1986 for alleged "scientific flaws".

In 1996 he retired from the professorial chair he had held in in London since 1985.

Work

The work that established Davies's reputation in the English-speaking world was God's Playground (1981), a comprehensive overview of Polish history, which still ranks as one of the most influential in the field. It gave Davies fame and notoriety in Poland, although — or rather because — it could only be distributed as an underground samizdat copy in the early 1980s. It would be published officially after the fall of communism in Poland. After 1989, God's Playground became required reading in many Polish classrooms, where each subsequent book was immediately translated and became an instant commercial success. In 2000, Davies's Polish publishers Znak published a collection of his essays and articles under the title Smok wawelski nad Tamizą ("The Wawel Dragon on the Thames"). It is not available in English.

In 1984, against the backdrop of the current events in Poland, Davies published a more concise, essayistic description of the role of the past in Polish present, entitled Heart of Europe.

In the 1990s, Davies returned with two monumental works: Europe (1996) and The Isles (1999). In both books he sets out to present the importance of the "peripheries" on an equal footing and to revise conventional wisdom in historiography that he considers too Westernly biased and Anglo-centric, respectively. In The Isles, Davies sought to expose what he considered the myth of a British nationality. In Davies's view, the whole idea of Britishness was an 18th-19th century myth created in order to justify English rule over the neighbouring 'Celtic' peoples such as the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh. Davies ends The Isles with a call for the end of the United Kingdom with Northern Ireland joining the Republic of Ireland, independence for Scotland and Wales, the abolition of the British monarchy and England seeking its fate in a united Europe. Davies has often criticised those in the United Kingdom who favour the Atlanticist orientation with closer ties to the United States. In Davies's view, the destiny of England lies with closer ties to Europe.

In 2002, at the suggestion of the city's mayor Bogdan Zdrojewski, Davies and his former research assistant Roger Moorhouse co-wrote a history of Wrocław / Breslau, a Silesian city. Titled Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City and published simultaneously in three languages (Polish, German and Czech), it became an instant bestseller in both Germany and Poland. The book considers the city a focal point of Central European history and uses it to present that history "in a nutshell".

Davies also writes essays and popular articles for the mass media. Among others, he has worked for the BBC as well as British and American magazines and newspapers, such as The Times, The New York Review of Books and The Independent. In Poland, his articles appeared in the liberal Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.

Davies's book Rising '44 describes the Warsaw Uprising and was internationally well received on the occasion of the Rising's anniversary in 2004. In Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (2006), Davies attempts to revise western perspectives of World War II. The chronicle treats the Eastern Front and the Soviet contribution as the decisive factors in the defeat of Germany. The book also directs the reader to review the broader reality of the Stalinist Soviet Union, both as an early ally of Hitler, and as an amoral totalitarian state.

In 2008 Davies participated in the documentary film "The Soviet Story".

Severe Censorship Controls during Communist Era and Lies of the Regime

Norman Davies in his book God's Playground describes severe censorship in Communist era and that the Soviet Union did not acknowledge it.

In 1948 at a First General Congress of Polish Historians Marxism-Leniism was installed as the sole ideological guide to all investigations into Poland's past. It promised to banish the concept of guilt and of all individual responsibility and that all the horror of the recent past was necessary for the nation to progress toward a better future. There were no Marxist historians and a whole generation had to be trained. History was to be used as a blunt political instrument.

In Communist Poland censorship was publicly known, but the stark severity of it only came to light, when an official censor of the People's Republic of Poland defected to the West and took a complete set of Censorship Office directives along. Publishers were required to submit annual publishing plans and each title for approval in advance. All censor's textual changes had to be incorporated before printing. No undesirable author or subject could be printed, no unapproved text or material could ever be added.

The Black Book of Polish censorship showed without any doubt, that controls were far more severe than anyone had imagined. What people were to be told or not to be told and how to interpret it all depended on state authorization. The Communist regime lived on myths and fictions. What made it worse for many Poles, as Davies writes, is the fact, that many western scholars, who were and are free to write, often mindlessly repeat the lies of the regime.

Criticism

Some colleagues have accused Davies of being an opinionated and biased Polonophile who strives to give the most charitable interpretation towards Poland's actions in Polish-Russian, Polish-Jewish, Polish-Ukrainian or Polish-German conflicts. In particular, some historians, most vocally Lucy Dawidowicz and Abraham Brumberg, object to Davies' historical treatment of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. They accuse him of minimizing historic antisemitism, and of promoting a view that the Holocaust occupies a position in international historiography which tends to minimize the suffering of non-Jewish Poles. Davies’ supporters contend that he gives due attention to the genocide and war crimes perpetrated by both Hitler and Stalin on Polish Jews and non-Jews. Davies himself argues that "Holocaust scholars need have no fears that rational comparisons might threaten that uniqueness. Quite the opposite." and that "...one needs to re-construct mentally the fuller picture in order to comprehend the true enormity of Poland’s wartime cataclysm, and then to say with absolute conviction ‘Never Again’."

In 1986, Dawidowicz’s criticism of Davies’ historical treatment of the Holocaust was cited as a factor in a controversy at Stanford University in which Davies was denied a tenured faculty position for alleged "scientific flaws". Davies sued the university for breach of contract and defamation of character, but in 1989 the court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction in an academic matter.

Awards and distinctions

Davies holds a number of honorary titles and memberships, including honorary doctorates from the universities of the Jagiellonian University (since 2003), Lublin, Gdańsk and Warsaw (since 2007), memberships in the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) and the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, and fellowships of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. Davies is also an honorary citizen of Polish cities of Warsaw, Wrocław, Lublin and Kraków. Member of the committee for Order of the Smile.

In 1999 he received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Knight's Great Cross) from the Prime Minister of Poland.

Personal

Davies married Maria Zielinska (a physician) 1966-12-26. He has one child, Daniel.

Publications

• 1972: White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20. (2004 edition: ISBN 0-7126-0694-7)
• 1977: Poland, Past and Present. A Select Bibliography of Works in English. ISBN 0-89250-011-5
• 1981: God's Playground. A History of Poland. Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795, Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925339-0 / ISBN 0-19-925340-4.
• 1984: Heart of Europe. A Short History of Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285152-7.
  • 2001: Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present Oxford University Press, USA; New edition ISBN 0-19-280126-0
• 1991: Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939-46. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-06200-1
• 1996: Europe: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820171-0
• 1997: Auschwitz and the Second World War in Poland: A lecture given at the Representations of Auschwitz international conference at the Jagiellonian University. Universitas. ISBN 83-7052-935-6
• 1999: Red Winds from the North. Able Publishing. ISBN 0-907616-45-3
• 1999: The Isles. A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513442-7
• 2002 (with Roger Moorhouse): Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06243-3
• 2004: Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0-333-90568-7
• 2006: Europe East and West: A Collection of Essays on European History. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06924-1
• 2006: Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-69285-3

References

• Snowman, Daniel "Norman Davies" pages 36–38 from History Today, Volume 55, Issue 7, July 2005.
• America, December 18, 1982, p. 394.
• American Historical Review, April, 1991, p. 520.
• American Scholar, fall, 1997, p. 624.
• Atlantic Monthly, December, 2002, Benjamin Schwarz, review of God's Playground: A History of Poland, p. 127.
• Booklist, September 15, 1996, p. 214; December 15, 1997, Gilbert Taylor, "A History of Europe," p. 682; February 1, 2000, p. 1006; May 1, 2004, Jay Freeman, review of Rising '44: The Battle of Warsaw, p. 1538.
• Commentary, March, 1987, p. 66.
• Current History, November, 1984, p. 385.
• Economist, March 6, 1982, p. 104; February 10, 1990, p. 92; November 16, 1996, p. S3; December 4, 1999, p. 8; April 27, 2002, "What's in a Name: Central European History."
• History Today, May, 1983, p. 54; March, 2000, Robert Pearce, "The Isles: A History," p. 55.
• Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2004, review of Rising '44, p. 256.
• Library Journal, March 15, 1997, p. 73; February 1, 2000, p. 100.
• Nation, November 21, 1987, p. 584.
• National Review, June 5, 2000, John Derbyshire, "Disunited Kingdom"; May 17, 2004, David Pryce-Jones, "Remember Them," p. 46.
• New Republic, November 15, 1982, p. 25; September 22, 1997, p. 36.
• New Statesman, May 21, 1982, p. 21; August 31, 1984, p. 26.
• New Statesman & Society, December 20, 1996, Norman Davies, "How I Conquered Europe," pp. 36-38; October 17, 1997, David Herman, review of Europe: A History, pp. 30-32; May 15, 1998, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, "The Hunted, Not the Hunters," p. 35. November 15, 1999, Alistair Moffat, "Jobs and Foxes Will Flee to England," p. 35; December 13, 1999, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Forging Our History," p. 57.
• New York Review of Books, September 29, 1983, p. 18; May 15, 1997, p. 30.
• New York Times Book Review, December 5, 1982, p. 52; March 4, 1984, p. 34; December 23, 1984, p. 5; June 22, 1986, p. 34; December 7, 1986, p. 84; December 1, 1996, p. 15.
• Observer (London, England), October 10, 1999, Andrew Marr, "A History Lesson for Wee Willie," p. 29.
• Publishers Weekly, August 26, 1996, p. 83; November 24, 1997, "A History of Europe," p. 64; January 24, 2000, p. 301.
• Sunday Times (London, England), October 17, 1999, Niall Ferguson, "Breaking up Is Hard to Do if You're British," p. NR4.
• Times (London, England), October 30, 1999, Richard Morrison, "Britain Dies as Mr. Tough Rewrites the Past," p. 21.
• Wilson Library Bulletin, October, 1986, p. 68.
• World and I, August, 2004, Richard M. Watt, "The Warsaw Insurrection: How Polish Capital Ferociously Resisted World War II Occupiers."*

External links

• Small English homepage at www.normandavies.com
• "Review of Europe at War"
• Britain and the Warsaw Rising. Essay, 2004.
• Official press release on the case of Davies vs. Stanford University
• A Polish site about Norman Davies (in Polish), includes a gallery and parts of translated text
• Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage