A citation for the honour praises his "original studies into the history of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which constitute an innovative attempt to understand the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the common history of Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians."
Prof. Cezary Kuklo of the University of Białystok described Frost as “one of the most distinguished British academics specializing in Polish history.”
He said that Frost’s greatest claim to fame is the first volume of The Oxford History of Poland–Lithuania. It was published in 2015 under the title The Making of the Polish–Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569.
According to Kuklo, Frost’s research on Poland and Central Europe offers a new look at Polish history by rejecting the prevailing focus on the partitions and defeats that are usually considered the dominant factors in the history of 18th-century Poland.
“What we owe to Prof. Frost is a new take on the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Polish-Lithuanian state that did not emerge as a result of war but through painstaking negotiations," Kuklo said.
In his remarks, Frost said that he took up history because he was not too keen to develop a career in his family’s furniture business.
He added jokingly that all he knew about Poland at the time when saw an advertisement about a study opportunity at the Jagiellonian University in the historic city of Kraków was that Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski knocked out England from the 1974 World Cup with his spectacular performance at London's Wembley Stadium.
Frost studied for his doctorate under Norman Davies, who served as an inspiration for him in focusing on Eastern and Northern Europe.
Frost is currently the director of the Centre for Polish-Lithuanian Studies at the University of Aberdeen.
Monday’s honorary doctorate ceremony for Frost came on the eve of the opening of a Congress of Polish Historians. The conference has brought together about 800 participants, including scholars from Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany, Belarus, the Netherlands and the United States.
(mk/gs)