Traian Stoianovich

Traian Stoianovich (20 July 1921 – December 21, 2005) was an American historian and a professor of history at Rutgers University. He specialized in the history of the Balkans.

Born Trajan Stojanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Трајан Стојановић) in Gradešnica, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (now part of R. Macedonia), his family moved to Rochester, New York, where he was brought up. At a time when it was difficult for working-class people and immigrants to achieve higher education, he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester. After serving in the United States Army during World War II (1942–45), he took a masters degree at New York University and received a doctorate from Université de Paris in 1952, where he became a major figure in the internationally influential Annales School of history.His doctoral mentor was Fernand Braudel.

Stoianovich was for four decades a teacher of European and world history at Rutgers University. He has also taught at New York University, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and Sir George Williams University (renamed Concordia University) in Montreal, Canada. He taught at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 1958-1959, on a Fulbright grant.