Vucinich, Wayne S.

Biographical/Historical Sketch

Wayne S. Vucinich joined the Stanford faculty in the Department of History in 1946, teaching courses on Western civilization and Russian and East European history until 1988. He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in Slavic languages and history at the University of California-Berkeley. After graduating in 1941 he joined the Office of Strategic Services and served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1945. Vucinich's many publications include Serbia Between East and West (1954), The Ottoman Empire: Its Record and Legacy (1965), The Peasant in 19th-Century Russia (1968), Contemporary Yugoslavia (1969), Russia and Asia (1972) and Eastern Europe (1973). He died on April 21, 2005.

From the guide to the Wayne S. Vucinich papers, 1926-2002, (Department of Special Collections and University Archives)

Biographical Note

• 1913: Born in Butte, Montana
• 1918 - 1928 : After his parents' death, Vucinich lived in his native village of Orah, near Bileće, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia
• 1929: Returned to America to live with his godfather's family in Wilmington, California
• 1936: BA, University of California Berkeley, History and Slavic language
• 1936 - 1937 : MA, University of California Berkeley, dissertation on Serbian foreign policy 1903-1909
• 1937 - 1938 : Doctoral research at the Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia
• 1939: Returned to UC Berkeley after the Munich crisis interrupted his research; appointed as a teaching assistant in the Department of History
• 1941: PhD, University of California Berkeley, dissertation on Serbian political and diplomatic history in the decade proceeding World War I
• 1942: Married Sara 'Sally'; Joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Research and Analysis Branch
• 1943: Sent to OSS headquarters in Bari, Italy; assigned to research the Balkans
• 1944: Served as a liaison officer, interpreter, and Balkan expert attached to the Allied Control Council in Sofia, Bulgaria
• 1945 - 1946 : Continued work on Balkan affairs for the U.S. State Department in Washington, DC
• 1946: Instructor, Western Civilization and East European history at Stanford University
• 1950: Cleared and confirmed as a "Loyal American" at a hearing before the Naval Security Board
• 1954: Author, Serbia between East and West: The Events of 1903-1908, Stanford University Press
• 1955: Received the American Historical Association's George Louis Beer prize
• 1956: Promoted to full professor at Stanford University
• 1972 - 1985 : Named as director of the Center for Russian and Eastern European studies, Stanford University
• 1974 - 1977 : Curator of the Russian and East European Collection at the Hoover Institution
• 1977: Appointed the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies at Stanford, a chair first established for him
• 1978: Formally retired
• 1981 - 1982 : Served as president of the American Association for the Advance of Slavic Studies, which established the Vucinich Book Prize in his honor in 1982
• 2005: Died in Menlo Park, California

Sources:

Vucinich, Wayne S., Memories of My Childhood in Yugoslavia, edited by Larry Wolff, The Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, Inc. Palo Alto, California, 2007.

Wayne S. Vucinich (1913-2005)- a professor between Herzegovina and California by Ivo Banac, Published in Dani (Sarajevo), 29 April 2005

Wayne S. Vucinich, Father of East European studies, died at 91. http://www.i-newswire.com/wayne-s-vucinich-father-of-east/a17703

Memorial Resolution, Wayne S. Vucinich. http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/memorial_resolutions/Vucinich_Wayne_SenD6020.pdf

From the guide to the Wayne S. Vucinich Collection, 1881-1994, (Hoover Institution Archives)