Jan Hennings

Jan Hennings' work has focused on Russian-European diplomatic encounters in the early modern period. He is interested in the connections between ritual and politics in early modern societies, particularly in cross-cultural contexts. He has used the evolution of Russian diplomatic culture in the second half of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries as a basis for exploring how seemingly circumstantial aspects of diplomacy - ceremonial formalities, protocol, and etiquette - shaped foreign relations and how ritual impacted on concrete action in early modern political life. His current project shifts the focus to include diplomatic exchanges between the Russian and Ottoman empires, concentrating on the first Russian resident embassy in Constantinople at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Before moving to Budapest, he had held a Junior Research Fellowship at St John's College Oxford and taught history as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Gerda Henkel Fellow at Sabanci University in Istanbul. At CEU, he offers courses centred around comparative approaches to the history of diplomacy and early modern empires as well as on broader topics on European history, Russia and the Ottoman world.

Jan Hennings would welcome enquiries from prospective students interested in working on research topics in:

Early modern Europe
Muscovy and Imperial Russia
History of diplomacy and international relations
Russian-Ottoman relations
Travel literature and cultural encounter

Topics studied by students who have worked with Jan Hennings include:

'Ceremonial Representation in Cross-Confessional Diplomacy: The Ottoman Embassy of a Christian Ambassador to Moscow in 1621', Maria Telegina
'Diplomatic Intermediaries During Rákóczi’s War of Independence, 1703–1711', Ewelina Sikora
'Official Physicians Within the Medical Landscape of the Russian Empire (1760s)', Kateryna Pasichnyk
'The Temperance Movement: Alcohol and Politics in Fin-de-Siècle Russia', Anna Smelova
'Mapping a City in Motion: European Visitors' Perceptions of Edirne During the Reign of Mehmet IV', Nicholas Crummey

Courses taught in previous years:

The Perfect Ambassador? International Relations and the Origins of Diplomacy, 1500-1800
Global Comparisons: Russia and the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1839 (together with Tijana Krstic)
Grand Debates in Russian and Eurasian History (together with Charles Shaw)
Interdisciplinary Methods of Comparative History

Academic Employment

Associate Professor, Central European History, Department of History, 2017-

Assistant Professor, Central European University, Department of History, 2016-17

Visiting Assistant Professor and Gerda Henkel Fellow, Sabanci University, FASS (History), 2014-15

Junior Research Fellow, St John's College, Oxford, 2009-13

Key Publications

Russia and Courtly Europe: Ritual and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1648-1725. New Studies in European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)

(co-edited with T A Sowerby), Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c. 1410-1800. Routledge Research in Early Modern History (London and New York: Routledge, 2017)

Awards and Honours

ESSA Book Prize 2017 for Russia and Courtly Europe. Early Slavic Studies Association | ASEEES

Elected member of the Junge Akademie at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and the German National Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina

Hedwig Hintze Dissertation Prize. German Historical Association 2012

Fritz T Epstein Dissertation Prize. German Association of Historians of Eastern European History 2012