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LSCLSC

Robert Austin

University of Toronto, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

  • Visiting Fellow
  • Duration of first stay: 11 May-10 June 2022 | Duration of second stay: June 2026
  • Contact: robert.austin@utoronto.ca

Upcoming Event in Regensburg: Book Launch Enver Hoxha - Twentieth-Century Tyrant - 9 June, 18:00 at IOS, Room 017 - with Artan R. Hoxha and Konrad Clewing

Robert C. Austin (PhD University of Toronto) is a specialist on East Central and Southeastern Europe in historic and contemporary perspective. In the past, Austin was a Tirana-based correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; a Slovak-based correspondent with The Economist Group of Publications; and a news writer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Austin has written articles for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Southeast European Times, Orbis, East European Politics and Societies and East European Quarterly along with numerous book chapters and several books. His most recent book is Royal Fraud: The Story of Albania’s First and Last King (2024) Prior to that he published A History of Central Europe in 2021 and Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878, was published with the University of Toronto Press in May 2019. An Albanian translation of the revised and expanded edition of the book published in Kosovo as  “Bërja dhe ribërja e Ballkanit: Kombet dhe shtetet që nga viti 1878” with Koha in April 2021. At CEES, he coordinates the Undergraduate and Graduate European Affairs Program, the Hellenic Studies Program and the Hungarian Studies Program.

His most recent book, a biography of Enver Hoxha: Twentieth-century Tyrant, is co-authored with Artan R. Hoxha and appeared with Chicago UP in 2026. Robert will be part of a discussion of the book on 9 June togerher with Artan Hoxha and Konrad Clewing.

Robert already gave an online talk in 2020 as part of the Research Colloquium, where he discussed Hungary’s authoritarian turn. In person this time, he will give a talk on 16 May at 15:15 in Room VG0.14 (Vielberth Gebäude) at UR, on The Multiple Trajectories of Albanian Transitional Justice - an event organized in collaboration with the Südosteuropa Gesellschaft He will draw on his long-standing expertise on Albania, as in the past he served as a Tirana-based correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In his talk, he will adopt a long-term perspective on 20th century Albania in considering the fraught and disjointed attempts to create a meaningful reckoning with Albania’s communist past.