Dominic Lieven

Dominic Lieven at LSE October 2015

Dominic Lieven (born January 19, 1952) is a research professor at Cambridge University (Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College) and a Fellow of the British Academy^[1][2] and of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Education

Lieven was educated at Downside School, a Benedictine Roman Catholic boarding independent school in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, near Shepton Mallet in Somerset, followed by Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated top of the class of 1973 (Double First with Distinction), and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University in 1973/4.

Professor of Russian and International History

Lieven is a writer on Russian history, on empires and emperors, on the Napoleonic era and the First World War, and on European aristocracy.^[3] Lieven is on the Editorial Board of Journal of Intelligence and Terrorism Studies^[4]. He was elected in 2001 Fellow of the British Academy, and was Head of the History Department at Cambridge University from 2009-2011, where he continues to teach; he was appointed Lecturer there in 1978, and Professor in 1993.^[5][6]

As opinionist

• Lieven was historical adviser on the BBC dramatic adaption of War and Peace, which courted controversy for its fabrication of incest between siblings, and was slated by Downton Abbey advisor Alastair Bruce over its mistaken military costumes.^[7] Lieven said:^[8]

• In May 2016, Lieven was one of 300 prominent historians who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian warning voters that if they chose to leave the European Union in a process called Brexit on 23 June of that year, they would be condemning Britain to irrelevance.^[9][10]

Personal life and ancestry

Dominic Lieven is the second son and third child (of five children) of Alexander Lieven (of the Baltic German princely family, tracing ancestry to Liv chieftain Kaupo) by his first wife, Irishwoman Veronica Monahan (d. 1979). He is the elder brother of Anatol Lieven and Nathalie Lieven QC, and a brother of Elena Lieven and distantly related to the Christopher Lieven (1774–1839), who was Ambassador to the Court of St James from Imperial Russia over the period 1812 to 1834, and whose wife was Dorothea von Benckendorff, later Princess Lieven (1785–1857), a notable society hostess in Saint Petersburg.

Lieven is "a great-grandson of the Lord Chamberlain of the Imperial Court" of Russia.^[11]

Lieven is friends with Simon Sebag Montefiore, and has read at least one of the latter's manuscripts.^[12]

Awards & Honours

• 1973-4: Kennedy Scholar, Harvard
• 1985: Humboldt Fellow
• 1998-9: British Academy Research Fellow
• 2005-8: Leverhulme Major Research Fellow
• 2009: Prix de la Fondation Napoléon
• 2010: Wolfson History Prize, "Russia Against Napoleon" (Selected by The Economist as one of its "History Books of the Year")
• 2013: Order of Friendship, Russian Federation
• 2016: Pushkin House Prize, London, "Towards the Flame"^[13]

Publications

His main works include:

• Russia and the Origins of the First World War, Macmillan Press (1983).
• Russia's Rulers under the Old Regime, Yale U.P (1989).
• The Aristocracy in Europe 1815/1914, Macmillan/Columbia UP (1992).
• Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias, John Murray/St Martin's Press/Pimlico (1993).
• Empire. The Russian Empire and its Rivals, John Murray/Yale U.P (2003).
• Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814. Allen Lane/Penguin (2009)^[14][15]
• Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia,^[16] Allen Lane/Penguin, 448 pages (May 2015).^[17][18][19]

See also

• Elena Lieven
• Anatol Lieven
• Dorothea Lieven
• Christopher Lieven

References

External links

• Official Page