Hugo Valentin

Who was Hugo Valentin?

Hugo Valentin was a Swedish historian and scholar. He was a professor of history at Gothenburg University. He is known, to scholars of Antisemitism, for his significant work which was translated into English from Swedish and published in 1937.

The Hugo Valentin Centre is named after the Swedish historian and is an inter-disciplinary forum at Uppsala University with research as its prime task. Research is carried out within two prioritized areas: on the one hand cultural and social phenomena and processes of change related to the ethnic dimension in human life, on the other hand the Holocaust and other cases of genocide and severe crimes against human rights. To these subject fields belong minority studies and Holocaust and genocide studies as well as related and adjacent subjects where the Centre has a marked specialisation: Holocaust history, massive violence, discrimination, multilingualism, migration and integration. Conditions in the Nordic countries and in the Balkans have a special position, and culture, language, history and religion are natural points of departure for the Centre's work.

The Centre's activities encompass research, education at post-graduate level, documentation and information. In addition to its own research, the Centre also is explicitly charged with the task of stimulating and initiating studies of its subject areas within Uppsala University. The Centre also has the task of disseminating knowledge about the areas' research problems and research results in the light of international and global perspectives, discussions and conditions. Against the backdrop of its tasks and focus, the Centre should constitute a resource for education at Uppsala University, primarily on the higher levels.