Martin Otto Heisler, distinguished scholar of comparative politics, was born in Budapest in 1938 into a Jewish family. For over fifty years, Martin’s work shaped comparative politics, international relations, and social science scholarship on the nature of European politics and democracy, ethnic identity, ethnic relations, migration, citizenship, and political and historical sociology. Martin passed away in February of 2021 in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he and his wife (Professor Barbara Schmitter Heisler) moved after their 2005 retirements.
In a 2001 essay in Light from The Ashes: Social Science Careers and Young Holocaust Refugees and Survivors, Martin reflected on the relationships between his own experiences as a child and the fate of his family—what he called “my Holocaust” —and the scholar, citizen, and educator he became. He credits some of extraordinary horrors and the everyday challenges he survived in occupied, wartime and post war Budapest and his detached, observant, and analytical nature. Late in his undergraduate studies, the survivor, refugee and migrant gravitated to political science, social inquiry, and then to an academic career. While seeking shelter in the academy can be illusory, he did find an intellectual home in the exploration of tensions between secular citizenship, ethnic relations, migration, and the political, social and cultural institutions that surround us all and shape who we are as individuals and in our collectives.
Martin arrived in Los Angeles in 1956 with his father, one of only a few family members to survive The Holocaust. Between 1960 and 1969, he earned his BA, MA and PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. He spent two years at the University of Illinois, before starting what would become four decades (1966-2006) at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the department of government and politics. During his time at College Park, he also taught and did research at the University of Kentucky, the University of Aarhus (Denmark), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (SNRS) Paris, the University of Warwick (UK) and the Institut d’Edtudes Politques (Sciences-Po), Paris.
His first book, Politics in Europe, shaped decades of scholarship on European and comparative politics. Decades of articles, book chapters and edited journals and symposia (collections) focused on ethnicity, ethnic politics, ethnic conflict, migration, the relationships with between identity and institutions, and the politics of history have influenced research and conceptualization of these topics across the social sciences.
Martin was active in several professional organizations, including the APSA and ISA (and several of its sections). In honor of his intellectual and personal leadership and his commitment to graduate student research and mentoring, ISA’s section on Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration (EMNISA)—which he co-founded—created the annual Martin O. Heisler Award for the best graduate student conference paper or poster.
Martin sometimes described himself as an introvert, but those of us who knew him well thought he hid it well. He loved the intellectual exchange, debates, coffees, glasses of red wine, and lively dinners that conferences and workshops bring. His friends—former students and academic colleagues from around the world—will miss those yearly meetups with him.
Martin continued to travel, research, write, publish articles and blogs, and edit collections throughout his 15 years as an Emeritus Professor (2006-2021). See more here: https://gvpt.umd.edu/feature/memoriam-professor-emeritus-martin-otto-heisler.
He is missed every day by his wife Barbara, his daughters Laura M. Heisler and Diana A. Heisler, their spouses, his four grandsons, and his stepchildren Monika Schmitter and Marc Schmitter. ■
