University Honors & Awards

Iván T. Berend

AWARDS

Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion (1990)

Official Visit from Hungary of President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Location: Bloomington
Presenter: Thomas Ehrlich

BIOGRAPHY

Iván T. Berend is professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and chairman emeritus of the EastWest Institute. He began teaching history at UCLA in 1990, after he had served as the president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1985. By 1993, he was the director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and began the reorientation of the Center's research and teaching mission toward a pan-European perspective.

Berend received an M.A. in economics and history from the Budapest University of Economics and Faculty of Philosophy, Eötvös Lóránd University (1953), a doctor degree in economics from the Budapest University of Economics (1957), a Ph.D. in history from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1958), and a habilitation degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1962).

A specialist in modern European economic history and the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, Berend has published close to 30 books and more than 100 scholarly papers, essays, and articles. His most recent publications include History in My Life: A Memoir in Three Areas (Central European University Press, 2009); From the Soviet Bloc to the European Union. The Social and Economic Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe Since 1973 (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Europe Since 1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2010); The History of European Integration. A New Perspective (Routledge, 2016); and Economic History of a Divided Europe. For Diverse Regions in an Integrating Continent (Routledge, 2020).

Berend has been awarded a number of honorary degrees by American, British, and Hungarian Universities, is a member of the Bulgarian, British, Czechoslovakian, and Hungarian Academies of Sciences, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. He received the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion from President Thomas Ehrlich during an official visit to IU in 1990.