Modris Eksteins

Modris Eksteins is a <a href="/facts/Latvian_Canadian/YMmrKmbA">Latvian Canadian</a> historian with a special interest in German history and modern culture.
Born in <a href="/facts/Riga/PCWbJn2h">Riga</a>, <a href="/facts/Latvia/y2PSa8lx">Latvia</a>, his works include Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (1989), which won the <a href="/facts/Wallace_K._Ferguson_Prize/GBmjDXdf">Wallace K. Ferguson Prize</a> and the <a href="/facts/Trillium_Book_Award/qcrUp5n6">Trillium Book Award</a>. Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II and the Heart of Our Century (1999), which juxtaposes the history of <a href="/facts/German_occupation_of_Latvia_during_World_War_II/zwcvITCQ">World War II and Latvia</a> with personal memoir, and won the <a href="/facts/Pearson_Writers%2527_Trust_Non-Fiction_Prize/S0urfQBm">Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize</a>, and Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery, and the Eclipse of Certainty (2012), which seeks to interpret the enormous posthumous success of <a href="/facts/Vincent_van_Gogh/q9aWnV4l">Vincent van Gogh</a> and discusses his forger <a href="/facts/Otto_Wacker/z34WqCJA">Otto Wacker</a>, and won the 2013 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. His work has been translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Latvian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
After emigrating to Canada as a child, Eksteins, son of a Baptist minister, settled first in <a href="/facts/Winnipeg/zvwJ8fBz">Winnipeg</a> and then in <a href="/facts/Toronto/cnXH7881">Toronto</a>, where he attended <a href="/facts/Upper_Canada_College/6aIqfVmd">Upper Canada College</a> on scholarship and then the <a href="/facts/University_of_Toronto/FpGjQNm9">University of Toronto</a> (<a href="/facts/University_of_Trinity_College/0vzT3xu6">Trinity College</a>) from which he graduated with a <a href="/facts/Bachelor_of_Arts/2pa1nwfR">BA</a> in 1965. Meanwhile, he attained a Diploma from <a href="/facts/Heidelberg_University/4IaFa3jD">Heidelberg University</a> in 1963. He then studied at <a href="/facts/Oxford_University/ExVVQL6V">Oxford University</a> (<a href="/facts/St._Antony%2527s_College/rfGJWnYD">St. Antony's College</a>) as a <a href="/facts/Rhodes_Scholar/aVf26dt3">Rhodes Scholar</a>, earning his <a href="/facts/BPhil/6XuqBqyT">BPhil</a> in 1967, and <a href="/facts/DPhil/paJumdN8">DPhil</a> in 1970. He joined the Division of Humanities at <a href="/facts/University_of_Toronto_Scarborough/dkFttS3D">University of Toronto Scarborough</a> in 1970, retiring as professor emeritus of history in 2010.

Modris Eksteins open-in-new

Modris Eksteins