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Treffen Tuesday
May 30, 2023 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
May – Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz, “Our Memories Build Our Future: Germans from Russia Still on the Move in the 21st Century”
Presentation:
This presentation is based on the banquet talk given at the 2022 AHSGR International Convention held in Lincoln, Nebraska. It reflects on the group’s history, including “The Double Stigma” as Germans and Russians during the two world wars and Cold War period, and its overcoming of occasional adversity in the new homelands. It also considers the group’s global success story in many fields of endeavor. It concludes about the ways in which the group has reached an inflection point, “coming full circle” at this time in its development, and reflects on where German from Russia descendants find themselves today.
Biography:
Eric J. Schmaltz earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2002. Since 2005, he has taught Modern European, American, and World History at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva and in 2019 began serving as Departmental Chair of Social Sciences. In 2014, he received the John Barton Distinguished Teaching and Service Award at his university and has been nominated for it on four other occasions. His research concentrates on Modern Germany and Modern Russia with an emphasis on ethnic and nationality issues, as well as German migration topics.
Over the past three decades, he has contributed a variety of articles and translations to AHSGR, GRHS, and the North Dakota State University Libraries in Fargo and has given frequent public talks both at home and abroad. His other articles and reviews have appeared in local newspapers, magazines, interdisciplinary journals, and major international edited volumes. From 2010 to 2020, he served as editor of the GRHS Heritage Review quarterly. Since 2008, he has served on the AHSGR Journal’s editorial board as well. He is also co-founder and co-director of the endowed Northwestern Oklahoma State University Institute for Citizenship Studies and since 2021 is the Donovan L. Reichenberger Endowed Chair in History.
