John Van Antwerp Fine Jr.

John Van Antwerp Fine Jr.
Professor Emeritus
John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. Professor Emeritus
Born	9 September 1939 (age 85); Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Professor of history
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada
Academic background
Alma mater	Harvard University
Academic work
Discipline	Balkan and Byzantine history
Sub-discipline	Medieval Bosnia, Bosnian Church
Institutions	University of Michigan

John V. A. Fine Jr. (born September 9, 1939) is an American historian and author. He is professor emeritus of Balkan and Byzantine history at the University of Michigan and has written extensively on the subject.

Early life and education

He was born in 1939 and grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, in a family of educators. His father, John Van Antwerp Fine Sr. (1903–1987), was Professor of Greek History in the Classics Department of Princeton University, and his grandfather, John Burchard Fine, founded Princeton Preparatory Schools, while his granduncle, Henry Burchard Fine, was a dean and professor of mathematics at the Princeton.^[1]^[2] His mother, Elizabeth Bunting Fine, was also a classicist and taught Latin and Greek at Miss Fine’s School, founded by his grandaunt.^[1]

Fine Jr.'s undergraduate and graduate training was at Harvard University, where he studied Byzantium, the Balkans, and medieval Russia. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1968 and began teaching at the University of Michigan in 1969.

Career and academic interests

Medievalist Paul Stephenson, lead professor at the School of History and Heritage, University of Lincoln, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, expressed high regard for Fine's work and compared him with the likes of Paul M. Barford, Simon Franklin, Jonathan Shepard.^[3]

His academic interests range from theology and the history of Christianity to Byzantium and the medieval and modern Balkans. His publications have become standard in the field, notably his surveys of the Medieval Balkans (1983 and 1987). In 1998, John V. A. Fine Jr. retired from Michigan, becoming a professor emeritus.^[4]

Bosnian history and Bosnian Church

He has also revolutionized the way scholars understand the Bosnian Church (first published in 1975; republished in England in 2006), showing that it was not heretical.

Fine has also contributed to the understanding of Bosnian history, working to correct popular misconceptions, especially during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He co-authored Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed with former student Robert J. Donia (1994), a work published in England, the US, and in Bosnian translation in war-time Sarajevo (1995). He traveled to and lectured in the besieged cities of Sarajevo and Mostar during the war.

Pre-modern identity of Croatians

In 2006, Fine published a study of notions of ethnicity in Croatia from the medieval period to the nineteenth century titled When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans. In 2008, Emily Greble Balić, a professor of history at Vanderbilt University, whose specialization is East European History, Minorities in Europe and Yugoslavia,^[5] gave a positive review stating that "(o)ne of the book's great strengths is Fine's analysis of premodern "ethnic" identity, which he convincingly demonstrates to have existed, though in different forms".^[6] In 2009, John K. Cox of North Dakota State University reviewed it largely positively, noting some points of criticism.^[7] James P. Krokar review from 2009 was also positive, stating that the book is "extremely important" addition to "South Slavic history, and to the debate on the modernity of the nation."^[8] The same year, Neven Budak of the University of Zagreb gave a mixed review, noting both some positive and negative aspects. On the negative side, Budak complained alleging "ideological prejudices" and "preconceived conclusions". He claimed that "the author did not prepare methodologically, nor did he become acquainted with the relevant works of non-Croatian authors", that Fine's approach to the topic "contrary to stated intentions - is traditionalist in its method, superficial and unreliable", alleging inappropriate "attitude towards Croats".^[9]

Works

Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (2005). When Ethnicity did not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472025600.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (2000). "The Slavic Saint Jerome: An Entertainment". Cultures and Nations of Central and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of Roman Szporluk. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ukrainian Research Institute. pp. 101–112. ISBN 9780916458935.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (2002). "The Various Faiths in the History of Bosnia: Middle Ages to the Present". Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-Ethnic States. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 3–23. ISBN 9780773524132.
Donia, Robert J.; Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1994). Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9781850652120.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1994) [1987]. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472082604.
- Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1987). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1991) [1983]. The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
- Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1983). The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472100255.
Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (2007) [1975]. The Bosnian Church: Its Place in State and Society from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century. London: Saqi Books. ISBN 9780863565038.
- Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1975). The Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation: A Study of the Bosnian Church and Its Place in State and Society from the 13th to the 15th Centuries. Boulder: East European Quarterly. ISBN 9780914710035.

References

^ ^a ^b Ward W. Briggs, Jr. "All Scholars - FINE, John Van Antwerp". Rutgers University. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
^ "John Van Antwerp Fine". The New York Times. 20 January 1987. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
^ Stephenson, Paul (1 January 2004). "Review: Barford, Early Slavs". The Medieval Review. Indiana University. ISSN 1096-746X. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
^ "John V. A. Fine | U-M LSA Department of History". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
^ Tyrone, Jr., Nelson O. "Bio - Emily Greble". Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2 Feb 2025.
^ Balić, Emily Greble (12 March 2008). "When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods (review)". Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 38 (4): 616–617. doi:10.1162/jinh.2008.38.4.616. ISSN 1530-9169. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
^ Cox, John K. (Spring 2009). "Review: When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods by John V. A. Fine, Jr". The Slavic and East European Journal. 53 (1). American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages: 142–44. JSTOR 40651096.
^ Krokar, James P. (28 April 2009). "John V. A. Fine Jr. When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006. Pp. 652, maps". Austrian History Yearbook. 39: 200–202. doi:10.1017/S0667237808001181. ISSN 1558-5255.
^ Budak, Neven (18 November 2009). "Kako se doista s jugonostalgičarskih pozicija može negirati hrvatska povijest ili o knjizi Johna V. A. Fine Ml. When Ethnicity did not Matter in the Balkans". Journal of the Institute of Croatian History (in Croatian). 41 (1). Zagreb: hrcak.srce.hr: 487–495. ISSN 0353-295X. Retrieved 17 December 2019.