BTU postdoc Dr. Frank Rochow receives award from the Polish ambassador

The award ceremony took place on July 24, 2024 in the ballroom of the Polish Embassy in Berlin.

Frank Rochow's doctoral thesis is entitled "Architecture and state-building. Fortress buildings as an instrument of Habsburg rule in Krakow and Lviv". In it, he examines the connection between state rule and military buildings using the example of the Habsburg monarchy immediately after the revolution of 1848/1849.

On the basis of case studies on Lviv and Krakow, Frank Rochow shows that fortifications were not only an expression of the pre-eminent position of the military and the comprehensive modernization of the Habsburg state. They were also an essential instrument for implementing this process.

Through a detailed analysis of the planning and implementation history of the construction projects, Dr. Rochow illustrates the mechanisms with which the monarchy attempted to assert its territory against Polish attempts at independence. The inadequacies of the Habsburg administrative apparatus and local conditions repeatedly placed limits on the claim to power. The buildings analyzed provide a realistic and very dynamic picture of state rule at a critical time in the Habsburg state-building process.

Dr. Frank Rochow completed his doctorate at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) at the Institute of Historyand theMax Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. The outstanding dissertation was proposed by supervisor Professor Yvonne Kleinmann via the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies and selected by a ten-member jury. Since January 2023, Frank Rochow has been supporting the development of concepts for interdisciplinary collaborative projects in the field of historical building culture and heritage as a teaching and fellow researcher at the Chair of Architectural Conservation at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Johanna Blokker.

The publication "Architecture and State Building. Festungsbauten als Instrument habsburgischer Herrschaft in Krakow und Lemberg" was published by Wallstein Verlag at the end of January 2024.

About the award
The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin and the Center for Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences are jointly organizing a competition for academic theses written at German universities. The Ambassador of the Republic of Poland's Academic Award honors outstanding dissertations and master's theses on Polish history and culture as well as German-Polish relations. The award was established in 2008. An international jury of experts decides on the award winners and announces the winners during the award ceremony in the summer of 2024 at the seat of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin.