Milan Stanislav Ďurica

Biography

Ďurica began his academical career in 1956, as professor of Theology at the Salesian Theological College in Abano Terme. He achieved a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1961 at University of Padua. In 1967 he became professor of political and constitutional history of Eastern European countries at the same university, where he was also Slovak language lecturer. In 1969 he founded the Eastern European Studies Centre (Centro di Studi sull'Europa Orientale) in Padua. He founded and edited Il Mondo Slavo, the yearbook of the Institute of Slavic Philology at the University of Padua.

Since 1993 Ďurica served as professor of church history at the Cyril and Methodius Theological Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava. He retired from teaching in 1997.

As a historian, Ďurica mainly concentrated on modern history of Slovakia and on the history of First Slovak Republic. His most successful book, Dejiny Slovenska a Slovákov (History of Slovakia and the Slovaks), remains controversial among Slovak historians and politicians, although it is the best-seller of Slovak history books. Indeed, despite some appreciation for his work on documents from Italian archives, not accessible to other Czechoslovakian historians during the communist regime, he has been criticised as an "ultranationalist". As a theologian, Pope John XXIII appointed him as adviser of the Preparatory Commission of Second Vatican Council.

Bibliography of Ďurica's works represents 1,700 publications, issued in eight languages. For its scientific and cultural activity he was made Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1995. The Accademia Teatina per le Scienze in Rome awarded him the title of Honorary Academician. In 1991 the Minister of Culture appointed him as the first director of the Slovak Historical Institute in Rome (the institute was closed and re-founded in 2001).

Ďurica also contributed to the first translation into Slovak language of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca and Ugo Foscolo.