Zigmantas Kiaupa

Garbės profesorius / Honorary Professor Profile (Suteiktas vardas 2022-06-27)

Zigmantas Kiaupa is a historian, Doctor of Humanities, professor at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), a long-time researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History and head of the VMU Department of History, who was the first to initiate academic research on the history of Kaunas and to write a multi-volume history of Kaunas. On the initiative of Prof. Kiaupa, the annual Kaunas History Conference has been organised since 1996. On 27 June 2022, he was awarded the regalia of VMU Honorary Professor for his significant contribution to Lithuanian historical science and the promotion of the name of VMU.

Prof. Kiaupa has worked in Vilnius archives; since 1970, he has been working at the Lithuanian Institute of History (Institute of History until 1990), and in 1993–1997, he was the head of the Department of the History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1993 he was awarded the title of Doctor of Humanities. In 1982–1986, he lectured to students of Vilnius Pedagogical Institute. In 1992, he began teaching at Vilnius University; since 1993, he worked as a lecturer and since 2003 as a professor at Vytautas Magnus University. In 1999–2000, he was Deputy Director for Research at the Lithuanian Institute of History. Since 2006, he has been a member of the VMU Senate, and since 2010, he has been the Chair of the Senate.

Prof. Kiaupa’s research interests include the political and cultural history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the history of Lithuanian cities and towns, and Lithuanian historical sources and cultural heritage abroad. He wrote the first political history of Lithuania after 1990, and has published many scholarly articles in Polish, German, Russian, Ukrainian, and other academic journals. Prof. Kiaupa compiled a collection of documents “Instructions for the Administration of Feudal Estates in Lithuania in the 17th–19th Centuries” (1985, in collaboration with Jūratė Kiaupienė), and published historical sources of Kaunas, Šiauliai, Telšiai and other cities.

Alone and in collaboration with others, Prof. Kiaupa has compiled more than 10 collections of scientific articles and historical sources. In 1992, together with J. Kiaupienė, he restored and prepared for the press vol. 3 of the continuous publication “The Past” (Praeitis). Since 1998, he has been the chairman of the editorial board of “Kaunas History Annals” and the “Bibliography of the Lithuanian History”, and since 2001 he has been the chairman of the editorial board of the journal “The Year-Book of Lithuanian History” and a member of the editorial board of the book “The History of Lithuania.” Prof. Kiaupa was one of the initiators of the re-establishment of the Lithuanian Historical Society and was one of its members. Since 1988, he has been a member of the Lithuanian Heraldry Commission.