Category: Prize

The International Prize for History CISH was awarded to Gábor Klaniczay, for the excellence of his works. The award will be delivered during the General Assembly of the CISH in September, 2017 in Moscow.

A specialist in late medieval and early modern religious history in Hungary and Europe, Gábor Klaniczay is professor of Medieval Studies at the Central European University, Budapest. With the insights of historical anthropology he researches what were the historical uses of heresy, sainthood, visions, stigmatics, magic, and witchcraft. His books include The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformations of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Polity – Princeton U. P., 1990); Szent Margit legendái és stigmái [Legends and stigmata of Saint Margaret] (Argumentum, 1994); Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses. Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe (Cambridge U.P., 2002)(ed.) Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge additional resources. Aspects juridiques et religieux (École française de Rome, 2004); (ed. with Éva Pócs) Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions (CEU Press, 2008); (ed.) Saints of the Christianization Age of Central Europe  (CEU Press, 2013).

For the first laureate of this prize, the jury – the Board of the CISH, which has 12 members from different countries – selected as the winner, from a pool of excellent and highly-qualified candidates, Serge Gruzinski (École des hautes études en sciences sociales and CNRS, Paris, France).

A specialist in the history of Latin America in the XVIth, XVIIth and XVIIIth century, Serge Gruzinski is a pioneer in reflecting on questions of global history and transnational history. He has popularized key notions such as « metissage » or « cultural circulation » across borders.

Among his many books, a few may be mentioned here, some of which have been translated into many languages:
* La Pensée métisse, Fayard 1999 ;
* Quelle heure est-il là-bas ? Amérique et Islam à l’orée  des temps modernes Seuil, 2008 (in English: What Time is It There ? America and Islam at the dawn of modern times, Polity, 2011);
* L’Aigle et le Dragon. Démesure européenne et mondialisation au XVIe siècle, Fayard, 2012 (in English : The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century, Polity 2014) ;
* L’Histoire pour quoi faire ?, Fayard, 2015.

The 26th of August 2015, the medal of The Grand International Prize of History has been presented to Serge Gruzinski during the XXIInd International Congress of Historical Sciences in Jinan, China, by Marjatta Hietala, president of the CISH, and a Reverso watch will be offered to him.