HUPCHICK, Dennis P(aul) 1948-

PERSONAL: Born September 3, 1948, in Monongahela, PA; son of Louis P. (a steelworker) and Ethel J. (a homemaker; maiden name, Veresh) Hupchick; married Anne-Marie Jaszenski, June 4, 1976; children: (stepdaughters) Beatrice Girard, Isabelle Girard. Ethnicity: "Slovak/Hungarian-American." Education: University of Pittsburgh, B.A., 1970, M.A., 1972, Ph.D., 1983. Politics: Democrat. Religion: "Non-practicing Roman Catholic." Hobbies and other interests: Photography, painting and collecting military miniatures.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of History, Wilkes University, P.O. Box 111, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766; fax: 717-824-2934.

CAREER: Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA, assistant professor of history, 1990—.

MEMBER: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Bulgarian Studies Association (president, 1992-95).

AWARDS, HONORS: Fellow of International Research and Exchanges Board at Sofia University, 1975, and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1976-77; Carl Beck research exchange scholar at Sofia University, 1983, 1990; Jubilee Medal "1300 Years Bulgaria" from State Council of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, 1984; Fulbright scholar at Sofia University and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1989.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction) The Pen and the Sword: Studies in Bulgarian History by James F. Clarke, East European Monographs (Boulder, CO), 1988.

The Bulgarians in the Seventeenth Century: Slavic Orthodox Society and Culture under Ottoman Rule, McFarland (Jefferson, NC), 1993.

Culture and History in Eastern Europe, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Harold E. Cox) A Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with R. William Weisberger) Hungary's Historical Legacies: Studies in Honor of Steven Bela Vardy, East European Monographs (Boulder, CO), 2000.

The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Harold E. Cox) The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Harold E. Cox) The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Balkans, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2001.

The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism, Palgrave (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books. Contributor to academic journals, including Nationalities Papers, Bulgarian Historical Review, and Indiana Slavic Studies.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Editing and writing a contribution to Bulgaria, Past and Present: Transitions and Turning Points, Part 1; editing A Sourcebook for Balkan History: Seventh through Nineteenth Centuries, the first part of a two-volume work.

SIDELIGHTS: Historian Dennis P. Hupchick is the author of numerous books on Eastern Europe. Culture and History in Eastern Europe is an analysis of the ancient roots of that region's modern conflicts. In this study, Hupchick considers the role of migrations, religion, and political empire—specifically, the influence of Ottoman rule in the Balkan peninsula. John D. Bell in Europe-Asia Studies described the book as an "accessible and highly readable introductory text." Similarly, The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism won praise for its solid scholarship and clarity of presentation. In Library Journal, Natasa Musa commended the book as both an important reference for specialists and a readable overview for nonspecialists. History: Review of New Books contributor John A. Koumoulides hailed it as "an important scholarly contribution" and "required reading for all those who need to understand the history of the area and its complexities."

Hupchick told CA: "I am a cultural historian who considers himself both a scholar and an educator. Although this statement may appear overly simple, it not only represents my current sense of self-identity, but also a twenty-five-year personal developmental process that has shaped most of my writing and other scholarly efforts.

"During the twenty years separating my entry into graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh and my joining the history faculty of Wilkes University, my various public identities were determined either by circumstances surrounding my continuing studies or by economic necessity. All were imposed from outside and, therefore, were transitory. Throughout those two decades, I refused to relinquish my personal professional goal of 'becoming' a historian and teacher. That sense of becoming drove me to pursue continued assorted scholarly endeavors, despite my lack of an academic position. Gradually, through persistent reading, research, and travel (to Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and all of its once-constituent republics, Romania, Austria, France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium), a personal view of how history operates (literally, a philosophy of history) matured in my mind.

"My readings convinced me that there was a method to history's madness. My first-hand exposure to the differences and similarities in world views among various people, coupled with my acquired academic knowledge of their histories, germinated an idea that the method in history was somehow linked to unique senses of reality held in common by human groups (societies) which, in turn, were expressed through what is usually considered 'culture.'

"The thrust of my research focused primarily on issues involving the roles played by religion and language in defining and preserving human group self-identity. By late 1989, I arrived at the conclusion that the commonly recognized components of culture were merely the outward manifestations of a society's overall sense of reality, and that reality was most fundamentally expressed through language and religion. I further surmised that a society's sense of reality determined every aspect of both its internal development and its relationships with other societies, thus rendering it the most significant determining factor in human social existence. The story of how such cultural relationships played themselves out among civilized societies over time constituted history.

"It was only after I joined the history faculty at Wilkes that the personal developmental process of the previous twenty years took its current form. At last I could identify myself as a historian; at least, I had the academic position to justify it. More importantly, the teaching responsibilities provided me with the opportunity to pull together my ideas into a structurally cohesive whole within a global context. I appreciate the close, symbiotic relationship that exists between teaching and scholarship. I consider them two sides of the same coin, both complementing and stimulating one another.

"My earliest publications lay in the mainstream of traditional American scholarship. They were highly specialized studies emphasizing narrowly focused research intended for an audience of academic specialists. My more recent writings have taken a turn toward popularizing my expertise in Eastern European history, so as to reach a broader reading audience. While the American academic community seems to frown on such a tactic, European scholars have demonstrated the validity and utility of extending their knowledge to a broad public."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

American Historical Review, February, 1996, George F. Jewsbury, review of Culture and History in Eastern Europe and Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, p. 208.

Booklist, July, 1997, review of A Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe, p. 1832.

Choice, April, 2002, S. Jent, review of The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Balkans, p. 1400.

English Historical Review, June, 1997, Richard Crampton, review of The Bulgarians in the Seventeenth Century: Slavic Orthodox Society and Culture under Ottoman Rule, p. 755.

Europe-Asia Studies, July, 1996, John D. Bell, review of Culture and History in Eastern Europe, p. 855.

History: Review of New Books, winter, 2002, John A. Koumoulides, review of The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism, p. 74.

Library Journal, March 1, 2002, Natasa Musa, review of The Balkans, p. 122.

Slavic Review, spring, 1996, Dennis Reinhartz, review of Culture and History in Eastern Europe and Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, p. 174.

Times Educational Supplement, May 2, 1997, review of A Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe, p. R4.*