Peter Kenez (born as Péter Kenéz in 1937) is a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

specializing in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n and

Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

history and politics.

Life

Peter Kenez was born and grew up in

Pesterzsébet Pesterzsébet is the 20th district of Budapest, Hungary. It is located in the southern part of the capital and is the 17th biggest district in the city. It is a mostly suburban area with approximately 70,000 residents. History Pesterzsébet was ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

. His father was arrested in March 1944 after

Operation Margarethe Operation Margarethe (''Unternehmen Margarethe'') was the occupation of Hungary by German Nazi troops during World War II that was ordered by Adolf Hitler. Course of events Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay, who had been in office from ...

and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and killed. His mother fled to Budapest with him, where they survived the persecution of the Jews by the Eichmann-Kommando and the

Arrow Cross Party The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...

. After the Hungarian uprising of 1956 he fled to the US. He received his PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

under the advisor Richard Pipes. He has taught at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

since 1966, where he is currently Professor Emeritus. He also teaches courses on

Soviet cinema The cinema of the Soviet Union includes films produced by the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history, albeit they were all regulated by the central government in Moscow. M ...

and an interdisciplinary course on the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

with literature professor

Murray Baumgarten Murray may refer to: Businesses * Murray (bicycle company), an American manufacturer of low-cost bicycles * Murrays, an Australian bus company * Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trust * D. & W. Murray Limited, an Australian who ...

Books

*''The Coming of the Holocaust: From Antisemitism to Genocide'', Cambridge University Press, 2013. *''Hungary from the Nazis to the Soviets: The Establishment of the Communist Regime in Hungary, 1944–1948'', New York,

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

, 2006. *''Cinema and Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin'', London and New York, I.B. Tauris, 2001. *''A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End'', New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999; 2nd ed., 2006. *''Varieties of Fear: Growing Up Jewish under Nazism and Communism'', Washington, American University Press, 1995. *''Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917–1953'', Cambridge University Press, 1992. *''Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution'', edited with Abbott Gleason and Richard Stites, Indiana University Press, 1985. *''The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929'', Cambridge et New York, Cambridge University Press, 1985. *''Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites'', Berkeley,

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

, 1977. *''Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army'', Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.Reviews of ''Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army'': ; ; ; ; ; ;

References

Historians of Russia Living people Harvard University alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty 1937 births {{Historian-stub