"An excellent historian, who takes people seriously"
She is one of Germany's most distinguished female historians, and has already received numerous prizes and awards for her work. November 8 saw the next highlight in the academic career of Prof. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger: the Historisches Kolleg presented to the holder of the Chair of Early Modern and Modern History at Münster University the Historisches Kolleg Award, worth € 30,000. The award is one of the most important German prizes for historians. "I'm delighted to receive this valuable award and I'm proud to be joining a list of winners which includes such names as Reinhart Koselleck and Jan Assmann. It is an enormous honour for me to receive this award, and one which I hardly deserve," she said at the presentation of the award at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is the first woman to receive this award.
In its citation, the Kolleg declared that with her book "The Emperor's Old Clothes. Constitutional History and Symbolism of the Holy Roman Empire", Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger had produced an outstanding piece of work. She had broken new ground, creating an impact beyond the borders of her discipline, and her writing style exemplary was exemplary. In his speech accompanying the award Prof. Gerrit Walther, an historian at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, talked about Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger's work. One important, characteristic feature of "The Emperor's Old Clothes" and other works written by her, he said, was that they dealt with specific people filled with life. "Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is an outstanding historian because she takes people seriously," he emphasised. At the same time she succeeded in portraying historical events with an "elegant, vivid clarity and without any jargon or pomposity". He praised the award-winner as an "important researcher".
In her talk, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger spoke about "The Difficulty of Deciding". She dealt from an historical perspective with the question of what it meant to make a decision, and how people at different times dealt with making – or not making – decisions. Something that made sense in the field of history, she said, was "to ensure that there is a critical distance vis-à-vis our modern decision-making culture".
The Historisches Kolleg Award was set up 30 years ago on the initiative of the Cologne historian Theodor Schieder, at the time Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Historissches Kolleg which had been founded in 1980. Since 1983 the award has been made every three years. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, 58, joins the ranks of such outstanding international historians as Christopher Clark, Thomas Nipperdey and Gerhard A. Ritter.