Honored Persons

 

Katja Sturm-Schnabl

Katja Sturm-Schnabl (born February 17, 1936 in Zinsdorf, Carinthia) is a Kärntner-Slovenian literary historian and linguist. Her family was politically and culturally active. At the age of six, she and her family were deported by the Nazis to various concentration camps in April 1942. Her sister did not survive the camp. After the end of the war, she graduated from high school in Klagenfurt and studied Slavic Studies, Russian, Art History and Byzantine Studies. From 1973 to 1984 she was a research assistant for Byzantine Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. From 1984 on, she taught South Slavic literary and cultural history at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Vienna. Member of the Equal Opportunity Commission. She habilitated in 1993. Through numerous publications in various languages, she promoted intercultural dialogue. In 2015, she received the "Golden Merit Award for Services to the Republic of Austria" for her engagement as a contemporary witness.