The Imre Kertész Kolleg at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena is a place for interdisciplinary and transnational historical research on the history of the 20th and early 21st century in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.
Founded in October 2010 as one of the International Centres in the Humanities (Käte Hamburger Kollegs) the Kolleg received funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for thirteen years until autumn 2023. Since October 2023, the University of Jena provides funding for the fellowship programme and the Kolleg’s management. In addition, projects such as the “Invisible University for Ukraine” (German Academic Exchange Service/DAAD) or the research network “Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives” (Volkswagen Foundation) continue to be financed by third-party funding.
At the heart of the Kolleg is the fellowship programme. We invite international scholars to Jena to pursue their research projects in a climate of dialogue and exchange. Our current focus is on research into the aftermath of the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe, the historization of the long transformation and the history of Ukraine in a European context.
The Kolleg is proud and honoured to bear the name of Nobel laureate Imre Kertész (1929–2016) whose life and work inspires the institute’s approach to the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. A victim of National Socialism, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where he was liberated by American forces in April 1945, and a witness to the Stalinist history of his native Hungary, Kertész experienced the two most fundamental attacks on human dignity which have been so tragically formative for the Eastern parts of Europe. Kertész’ novel Fateless is among the most important literary representations of the Shoah. His extraordinary contribution to keeping alive the memory of the loss of all civilizational and human certainties in twentieth-century Europe remains an example to all at the Kolleg.
Until September 2022 the Kolleg was housed in two landmark buildings – the GDR high-rise JenTower with its signature round glass façade, and the eighteenth century former summer residence of the Princesses of the Grand Ducal House of Saxe-Weimar (Griesbach Gartenhaus). Fellows and staff had their office spaces in both buildings; there were seminar rooms and one common room for more informal gatherings shared by all members of the Kolleg. More information can be found in Historical Notes on the Kolleg’s Buildings. As of 01 October 2022 the Kolleg is exclusively housed in the Griesbach Gartenhaus.