Daimler and Benz Foundation scholarship for Félix Krawatzek

The postdoctoral award has a value of 40,000 euros and will be used to fund part of his ZOiS research project The Proliferation of Memory Laws and the Return of the Nation, focusing on Russia. In Russia, active use is made of memory laws to control the national historical narrative and strengthen national identity. They thus constitute a legal framework which determines what can be said in public about historical events. However, laws such as these exist not only in authoritarian regimes, but also in democracies. Félix Krawatzek seeks to understand the political dynamics behind the juridification of memory and its wider societal implications. As part of this project, a database is being compiled on memory laws and a survey conducted in Russia.

The Daimler and Benz Foundation awards 10 scholarships annually to selected postdocs, junior professors and heads of young research groups. The aim of the scholarship programme is to promote the autonomy and creativity of junior academics and ease their career path during the productive postdoctoral phase. The scholarship funds, which cover a two-year period, may be used to pay for research assistants, technical equipment, research-related travel or attendance at meetings.

Félix Krawatzek is a senior researcher at ZOiS and an Associate Member of Nuffield College (University of Oxford). He previously held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford, where he finished his doctorate in 2015. He was a visiting fellow at Sciences Po Paris and at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Besides memory research, his interests include social and youth movements, and migration and transnationalism.