Oto Luthar

Who is Oto Luthar?

Oto Luthar is a Slovenian historian. Since 1992, he has served as the director of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana, the largest research institution in Slovenia.

He was born in Murska Sobota, Slovenia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He studied history at the University of Ljubljana, graduating under the supervision of Bogo Grafenauer in 1986. He obtained his PhD in 1992. Since 1989, he has taught history at the University of Maribor. Between 1999 and 2000, he was visiting professor at Yale University.

He has written on numerous subject, including history and theory of historiography, history of European Jews, especially their relation to Slavic peoples, and social history of World War I. Since 2003, he is also head of the graduate program of cultural studies at the University of Nova Gorica.

In 2011, Luthar was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.

He is married to cultural critic and sociologist Breda Luthar.