Matthias Melcher, M.A.

Doctoral Project

Geschichte(n) schreiben. Fakt, Fiktion und Narration und ihre Wirkmächtigkeit im Ostmittel- und Osteuropa des 19. Jahrhunderts

Writing (hi)story. Fact, Fiction, Narrativity and Their Power in 19th Century East Central and Eastern Europe

Since Hayden White’s famous books on the “Tropics of Discourse” it is historiographical commonplace that there is no writing history without plotting events in a certain narrative order. Thus, he or she who writes history also always tells some kind of story. This doctoral project turns White’s thesis around and asks how stories (including all different kinds of narrativity) make history. Some stories vanish quickly out of societal discourse, while others are told time and again, thus eliciting performative impact. The research will analyze what enabled the success of a given story in Eastern Europe from a historical perspective during the (long) 19th century focusing mainly on examples from the former Habsburg Empire. The goal of this doctoral project is thus to generate new insights into the historical contexts of a given narrative, as well as to develop a typology of both powerful and ultimately inconsequential stories.

Curriculum Vitae

Born 1994 in Regensburg. 2014-2020 Studies of Comparative Literature, Slavic Literature and East European History at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich and École Normale Supérieure Paris. Master’s thesis: The Invention of National Literature. Mystifications, Forgeries and the Imagined Communities of East European National Movements During the 19th Century. Since May 2020 speaker of the local group of the Junge Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde (JDGO) in Munich. Since October 2020 Ph.D. student at LMU Munich. Project topic: “Writing (hi)story. Fact, Fiction, Narrativity and Their Power in 19th Century Eastern Europe”

Awards

• 2014-2020 scholarship holder of the Max-Weber-Programm and member of the Elite Network of Bavaria
• 2014-2020 scholarship holder of the Stiftung Maximilianeum
• 2015-2020 scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes – German Academic Scholarship Foundation

Publications

Articles and book chapters

• Melcher, Matthias: Die Erfindung der Nation(alliteratur). Tschechische, polnische und belarusische literarische Fälschungen im 19. Jahrhundert. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 61 (2021) 2, pp. 190-219.
• Melcher, Matthias: Playing for Sovereignty. Games issued by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance and their role in memory politics. In: Bescotti, Elia and Matlack Jon-Wyatt (eds.): Sovereignty Through Practice. Multiscalarity, Reflexivity and Interdisciplinarity. Routledge 2025, pp. 214-232.
• Ivanova, Anna, Melcher, Matthias and Gérard, Nelly: Studying discursive practices of sovereignty. In: Bescotti, Elia and Matlack Jon-Wyatt (eds.): Sovereignty Through Practice. Multiscalarity, Reflexivity and Interdisciplinarity. Routledge 2025, pp. 257-264.

Reviews

• Bernhard Unterholzner: Die Erfindung des Vampirs. Mythenbildung zwischen populären Erzählungen vom Bösen und wissenschaftlicher Forschung. Wiesbaden 2019. In: Erinnerungskulturen, March 13, 2019. URL: https://erinnerung.hypotheses.org/8143

• Mannová, Elena: Minulosť ako supermarket? Spôsoby reprezentácie a aktualizácie dejín Slovenska. Bratislava 2019. In: Bohemia 60 (2020) 2, pp. 327-329.
• Dudeková Kováčová, Gabriela (Hg.): V supermarkete dejín. Podoby moderných dejín a spoločnosti v stredoeurópskom priestore. In: Bohemia 61 (2021) 1, pp. 141-144.
• Smyčka, Václav: Objevení dějin. Dějepisectví, fikce a historický čas na přelomu 18. a
  19. století. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 61 (2021) 2, pp. 272-275.
• Kšiňan, Michal: Milan Rastislav Štefánik The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 62 (2022) 1, pp. 118-120.
• Hillel J. Kieval, Blood Inscriptions: Science, Modernity, and Ritual Murder at Europe’s Fin de Siècle, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. In: Judaica Bohemiae LVIII (2023) 1, pp. 189-192.
• Cooper, David L.: The Czech Manuscripts. Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. In: Bohemia 62 (2022) 2, pp. 351-353.
• Toman, Jindřich: Bohemia’s Jews and Their Nineteenth Century. Texts, Contexts, Reassessment. In: Bohemia 63 (2023) 1, pp. 148-151.
• Hojda, Zdeněk/Bendová, Eva (eds.): Léta putování. Člověk na cestách v dlouhém 19. století. Sborník příspěvků z 43. ročníku mezioborového sympozia k problematice 19. století. Plzeň, 2.-4. března 2023. In: Bohemia 63 (2023) 2, pp. 396-399.

Conference Reports

• Das 23. Münchner Bohemisten-Treffen. In: Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder 59 (2019) 1, pp. 168-172.
• Das osteuropäische München in der Nachkriegszeit und im Kalten Krieg. In: H-Soz-Kult, December 13, 2022.

Other

• Crossing disciplinary boundaries: Junge Perspektiven auf Interdisziplinarität in der Osteuropaforschung. Online dossier edited in cooperation with Magdalena Burger. In: osmikon, May 15, 2023. URL: https://www.osmikon.de/themendossiers/crossing-disciplinary-boundaries
• together with Stephanie Herold: Geschichte sehen und hören. Zwei Studienprojekte in Moosburg an der Isar. In: DI. Denkmal Information Bayern 182 (2024), pp. 36-41.

Presentations

2020

• “Die Erfindung der Nation(alliteratur). Mystifikationen, Fälschungen und die imagined communities osteuropäischer Nationalbewegungen im 19. Jahrhundert” (Colloquium of the Chair of East and Southeast European History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, May 27, 2020)

2021

• “Geschichte(n) schreiben. Fakt, Fiktion und Narration im Osteuropa des 19. Jahrhunderts”  (Colloquium of the Chair of East and Southeast European History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, April 14, 2021)

• “Geschichten schreiben Geschichte. Zur Wirkmächtigkeit von Narrativen im Osteuropa des langen 19. Jahrhunderts” (28. Tagung der Jungen Osteuropa-Expert*innen. Neue Forschungen zu Osteuropa, September 30 – October 2 2021, Zurich)

• “Playing for Sovereignty in the App Store of History: Online Games Issued by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance and their Role in Memory Politics”  (Competing Sovereignties: Intertwinement, Contestation, Evolution. 2nd Graduate Workshop of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Regensburg in cooperation with the Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America in the Modern World, December 2 – December 4 2021, online)

2022

• “Pfeile und Pergamente. Die Geschichte vom (Er-)Finder der „böhmischen Ilias“ und ihre mediale Verbreitung“ (26. Münchner Bohemisten-Treffen, March 11 2022, online)
• “Writing stories, making history. On Fact, Fiction and Narrativity and Their Power in 19th Century East Central Europe“ (History and Literature: Methods, Theories, Fields, June 23 – June 24 2022, Warsaw)
• “In the “App Store” of History. Shaping Historical Memory Through Videogames in East Central Europe“ (From 'Early Access' and 'Open Worlds' to Game-Cons and Clans. The Production of Spatiality and Community in Contemporary Gaming. 3rd Graduate Workshop of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Regensburg in cooperation with the Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America in the Modern World, September 14 – September 16 2022, Regensburg)

2023

• “Wer schreibt, der bleibt. Wer protokolliert wird, auch. Parlamentsdebatten und die Verbreitung von Verschwörungstheorien am Beispiel der Ritualmordanklage von Tiszaeszlár 1882-1883” (Colloquium of the Chair of East and Southeast European History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, July 13, 2023)
• “Ein verschwundenes Mädchen, Pfeile aus der Hussitenzeit und ein Friedhof in Prag. Inszenierung von viralen Storys im Ostmitteleuropa des Langen 19. Jahrhunderts” (Prager Vorträge - organized by Collegium Carolinum, DHI Warschau and leibniz GWZO prague, November 21 2023, Prague)

2024

• “Kalliope vermessen? Wie sich Geschichten verbreiten und was wir (als Historiker:innen) damit machen können, oder auch nicht” (Workshop Geschichte(n) erzählen. Klio und Kalliope in der jüdischen Geschichte Zentral- und Osteuropas, January 23 2024, Graz/online)
• “Stories move: The Czech Manuscripts and story-induced mobility during the late nineteenth century” (Change from Below: Mobility, Transformation, and Exchange across Europe. 5th Annual Graduate Workshop of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Regensburg in cooperation with the Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America in the Modern World, May 23 – May 25 2024, Regensburg)
• “How to do things with stories. Zur Wirkmächtigkeit viraler Geschichten im Ostmittel- und Osteuropa des Langen 19. Jahrhunderts” (Colloquium of the Chair of Modern History with a focus on Eastern European History, October 24, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen)
• “Virale Stories und Fact-Checking. Überlegungen aus dem langen 19. Jahrhundert zu einem zeitgenössischen Phänomen”, Herder-Institut Research Academy, Marburg, October 2