Robert Austin
Associate Director, CERES
Professor; Teaching Stream, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
Graduate Student Coordinator
Phone
416-946-8942
Location
Room 126N, 1 Devonshire Place
Biography
Robert C Austin (PhD University of Toronto) is a specialist on East Central and Southeastern Europe in historic and contemporary perspective. In the past, Austin was a Tirana-based correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; a Slovak-based correspondent with The Economist Group of Publications; and a news writer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Austin has written articles for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Southeast European Times, Orbis, East European Politics and Societies and East European Quarterly along with numerous book chapters and two books published separately in Tirana and Prishtina. He has lectured widely in Europe and North America. His most recent book, “Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878”, was published with the University of Toronto Press in May 2019. An Albanian translation of the revised and expanded edition of the book published in Kosovo as “Bërja dhe ribërja e Ballkanit: Kombet dhe shtetet që nga viti 1878” with Koha in April 2021. He is now writing a popular history of Central Europe since 1848 under contract with Palgrave. At CERES, he coordinates the Undergraduate and Graduate European Studies Program, the Hellenic Studies Program and the Hungarian Studies Program.
Research interests
Transitional Justice in Albania
State and Nation Building in the 19th and 20th Century Balkans
Kosovo Democratization
Education
PhD University of Toronto (1998)
MA University of Toronto, History (1991)
BA Carleton University, Political Science (1987)
Awards and Distinctions
President’s Medal of Gratitude, Republic of Albania, 2015
Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto, 2014
Rakoczi Medal For Distinguished Service for Hungarian History and Culture, 2010
Golden Laurel Leaves from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bulgaria for Distinguished Service to Bulgarian Foreign Policy, 2005
Books
Bërja dhe ribërja e Ballkanit: Kombet dhe shtetet që nga viti 1878. Prishtina: Koha, 2021.
Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019.
Founding a Balkan State – Albania’s Experiment with Democracy, 1920 – 1925. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Revolucioni i Ikur (English Title: The Disappearing Revolution). Prishtina: Koha, 2012.
Articles and Book Chapters
“Are We There Yet? The Quest for Stability and Democracy in the Western Balkans”, in J. L. Black, Michael Johns, and Alanda D. Theriault, Eds. The New World Disorder: Challenges and Threats in an Uncertain World. Rowman & Littlefield: 2019.
“A Word on Kosovo’s First Ten Years,” Südosteuropa. V. 66 (2018) no. 2.
“Confronting the Soviet and Post-Soviet Past in Georgia” in Cynthia Horne and Lavinia Stan, Eds. Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking Forward to the Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
“Transitional Justice as Electoral Politics” in Nadya Nedelsky and Lavinia Stan, Eds Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Courses
Europe from Nation State to Supranational State, 1789-Present
Enlarging Europe: The European Union and its Applicants
Revolution to Revolution: Hungary from 1848 to the Present
The City in Central Europe: Budapest, Prague, Wroclaw and Vienna
Modern Greece in the Balkans and the European Union