Francis Dvornik

Francis Dvornik (Czech: František Dvorník; 14 August 1893 – 4 November 1975) was a Czech academic medievalist, byzantinist, slavist and Catholic priest. He was one of the leading 20th century authorities on Slavic and Byzantine history and matters related to the churches of Rome and Constantinople. For almost three decades, he was a professor of Byzantine history at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies of Harvard University.

Career

Dvornik was born on 14 August 1893 in Chomýž, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (today the Czech Republic), to Francis Dvornik and Frances Tomečková. Already in his childhood years was showing "outstanding" achievements in elementary school, because of which in 1904 was sent to the local archiepiscopal minor seminary.^[1]

In June 1912 completed classical gymnasium with high scores,^[1] and between 1912 and 1920, he studied and/or graduated at the Archdiocesan School in Kroměříž, the Faculty of Theology of the University of Olomouc, and the Charles University in Prague (studying Slavic studies under Lubor Niederle and Josef Peisker^[1]), receiving his D.D. in theology in 1920 from Olomouc. In the meantime in 1916 he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.^[2][3] Olomouc's University professor and dean Jan Hejčl desired to be succeeded one day by Dvornik, but his negative experience as an assistant pastor in Germany (1917-1919), and rising political and anti-Catholic Away from Rome! movement, impacted a change in his career path.^[1]

In summer 1920,^[1] went to study several specalties at the University of Paris, graduating Sciences Po in 1923, and PhD in humanities from Sorbonne University in 1926, influenced by Charles Diehl to become a Byzantist. Then he returned to home country, became an ecclesiastical history professor at Charles University in Prague, and helped founding the Institute of Slavic Studies and the academic journal Byzantinoslavica.^[2][3]

During the World War II period, he emigrated to France and Great Britain, where became Schlumherger Lecturer at the Collège de France in Paris, and was appointed Birbeck Lecturer at Cambridge University in 1946.^[2][3] In England he received honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, in 1947 became corresponding fellow of the Royal Society and honorary membership at the Royal Historical Society.^[1]

Despite assured academic career in England, he accepted the invitation to join the Institute of Byzantine Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Center of Harvard University in the United States. Dvornik became most known for his activity as a professor there, first as visiting in 1948, and then of resident full professor of Byzantine history since 1949 until 1964. In 1951 started to conduct his own course "Early Slavic History and Civilization" (which lectures expanded and published as a book). In 1952 he was elected membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (member since 1955^[4]) and corresponding fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (or 1954^[5]).^[1] He also had a membership in the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, Czech Academy of Sciences, and Romanian Academy of Sciences.^[6] He was also named Knight of the French Legion of Honour, and in memoriam received Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (class III).^[7]

Participating in nine Byzantine Studies symposia, he directed in 1952 the "Byzantium and the Slavs" and in 1964 with Roman Jakobson "The Byzantine Mission to the Slavs: St. Cyril and St. Methodius".^[8] Since 1964 he has continued his research and teaching as Professor Emeritus at Dumbarton Oaks.^[2][3][8] By then, several academic societies, associations and universities in the US awarded him honorary degrees and awards.^[1]

He died on 4 November 1975 in his home during a visit from the United States. At his funeral came two bishops and 120 priests, and many academics and scholars paid homage to him.^[3]

Legacy

Dvornik has been credited to have "changed our views of the history of Byzantium, of the Slavs and of the Church of Rome; provided large syntheses of Slavic civilization from its beginnings to the early modern period; and traced the development of Byzantine political ideas from their beginnings in the ancient Orient to their reflections in post-Byzantine Eastern Europe".^[3] Dumbarton Oaks has called him "one of the leading twentieth-century experts on Slavic and Byzantine history and on relations between the churches of Rome and Constantinople".^[2] When published two volumes on the history of Slavic nations (1956, 1962), was deemed "that no one was better qualified to present so wide a synthesis of such a complex history".^[8] He also contributed to research that helped rehabilitate, from a Catholic standpoint, the Byzantine patriarch and writer, Photios I of Constantinople.^[8] Jan N. Bremmer considered that the modern use of word "iconoclasm" and study of Byzantine history from an iconoclastic viewpoint in Anglosphere began and was influenced by work of Dvornik and Ernst Kitzinger.^[9] For all those achievements, Dvornik in 1972 received Award for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies by American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.^[8][1]

Dvornik was hailed for his "erudition",^[1] "intelligence, ability to view history in large interconnected units, and sheer passion for writing".^[3] Sirarpie Der Nersessian noted that at the Dumbarton Oaks "from the very beginning his unbiased attitude in intellectual matters as well as in personal relations, his loyalty, his kindliness, and his genial personality won the esteem and affection of his colleagues and of the younger Fellows, as well as of the members of the Staff. His broad outlook, his judgement and wise counsels have been of invaluable assistance ... and of major importance has been his role in the development of its Library".^[8][7]