Name Vasilijus Safronovas | ||
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Vasilijus Safronovas (born 21 July 1984, in Klaipėda) is a Lithuanian historian. Throughout his writings he explores modern cultural and intellectual history of Lithuania and former region of East Prussia, with particular interest to former Territory of Memel/ Klaipėda (or Memelgebiet in German).
Life
At the age 17 he published his first scientific book – a synthetic work on history of the city of Klaipėda. In 2007 Safronovas received his M.A. in history from Klaipėda University and in 2011 defended his PhD "The Competition of Identity Ideologies in a City of South-Eastern Baltic Sea Region: the Case-Study of Klaipėda in the 20th Century" at The Lithuanian Institute of History and Klaipėda University (supervisor Professor Alvydas Nikžentaitis), developing the concept of competition between different identity ideologies and cultures of remembrance in the same city.
Since 2008, he has worked as a lecturer at Department of History, Klaipėda University (giving lectures on Theory and History of Historiography; Heritage Theory and Management; History of the City and Region of Klaipėda). In 2010 to 2015 he also worked as research fellow at the Lithuanian Institute of History (Vilnius) as well as at the Institute of Baltic Region History and Archaeology (within Klaipėda University) from 2011. Safronovas participates in national and international research projects on various topics in identity and collective memory, coordinated by both of these institutes.
Among his works are several books and more that 40 scholarly articles, published in Lithuanian, German, English, Russian, French, and Polish on issues of history of the city and region of Klaipėda, nationalism, foundational myths, collective memory, identity, cultures of remembrance, and politics of history in Lithuania, former region of East Prussia, and the Baltic Sea Region in the 19th and the 20th Century. He was also an author of 545 articles on regional history prepared for the 4th Volume of "Encyclopaedia of Lithuania Minor" (2009) and co-editor of several books published in the series "Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis" by Klaipėda University.
In 2012 his PhD dissertation was awarded with a prize of Lithuanian Society of Young Researchers. His works were also awarded with Immanuel Kant Scholarly Prize founded by Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery of Germany and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.