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

In my dissertation I am analyzing examples of viral stories from the discourses of Czech nationalism, Viennese capitalism, and Hungarian antisemitism during the Nineteenth century and draw a picture of why and how certain stories spread in the Habsburg monarchy. Following the US anthropologist Walter Fisher, I conceive humans as storytelling animals, or as he phrased it: “homo narrans”. As humans, we experience our surroundings through the stories we are told and in turn shape our environment by the stories we tell. Most of these stories come into exist-ence and vanish rather quickly, others however are told time and again. And some even go viral and potentially drive human action - for the better or worse.

Three Viral Stories in the Habsburg Monarchy
The Queenscourt manuscript (Rukopis Královédvorský) was an integral part of the Czech nationalist discourse during the Nineteenth century. Discovered, published and very likely forged by Václav Hanka it was intended to prove the equality of Czech culture in the European context by providing hitherto unheard of high-quality medieval Czech literature. Publications of the manuscript and reviews about them however almost always contain not only the manu-script’s text and a scholarly analysis but also the easy-to-grasp story of how the manuscript was found. I argue that this viral story played an important role in the dissemination of the Queenscourt manuscript and was the decisive factor in making Dvůr Králové a pilgrimage site for Czech nationalism. The guestbook of the manuscript vault in Dvůr Králové’s church, which lists more than 4,600 entries between 1861 and 1919 serves as ample testimony for the power of Hanka’s story. The story drew visitors from as far as Chicago and Simferopol to Northern Bohemia pledging their allegiance to the Czech cause.

On January 14, 1872, the Habsburg public was for the first time confronted with an advertise-ment that would surface time and again until the stock market crash in May 1873. A certain J. B. Placht was offering tremendous gains for everyone willing to buy shares with his stock-trading company. Placht in fact was not trying to enrich his customers but mainly himself as he tried to attract ever more victims for his Ponzi-scheme avant la lettre. Placht heavily invested in public relations and paid newspapers for stories that put his commercial activities in a positive light. According to testimonies in trial, Placht spent about 150,000 fl. for this purpose focusing on articles in the newspaper Der Reporter, ads in the Neue Freie Presse and drawings in the satiri-cal journal Die Bombe. For quite some time, these efforts paid off for Placht. His customers viewed him as an “ingenious businessman” and thought that their money was “beyond all risks” (Aus dem Gerichtssaale. Proceß J. B. Placht. In: Neue Freie Presse (07.02.1874), p. 6–7.). Himself portrayed as a successful broker, Placht could carry out his scheme until May 1873, when it eventually became obvious that his fraud costed his customers about 3,000,000 fl.

On April 1, 1882, shortly before Passover, the young girl Eszter Solymosi went missing on an errand in the small Hungarian village of Tiszaeszlár. As all evidence suggests, she drowned in the nearby Tisza river either having slipped or committing suicide. Soon however, the rumor spread that the local Jews had had a hand in the girl’s disappearance. The local affair, that was based on the story of Eszter being ritually murdered – in fact a story engendered by coercive interrogation – was blown out of proportion by two Hungarian politicians, Géza Ónody and Győző Istóczy. With their interventions in parliament, they made Eszter’s story go viral even beyond the Habsburg Empire. Eszter’s story sparked impressive economic and literary activities as antisemitic devotional objects were produced and antisemitic newspapers came into being. A striking example is Rebach, the first German antisemitic satirical journal published in Budapest that managed to create an emotional community of hatred mainly fueled by the alleged ritual murder in Tiszaeszlár.

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.
• Melcher, Matthias: Measuring Calliope: How Stories Spread and What Historians Can (and Cannot) Do with That. In: Chilufim 32 (2025), pp. 61-80.

Research Data Sets

• Melcher, Matthias (2026): The Queenscourt Manuscript Chamber Guestbook, 1861-1919. Collegium Carolinum. DOI: 10.15463/djfpx4y368xww7n3

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, Munich)

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, Munich)

• “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, 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, online)

2022

• “Pfeile und Pergamente. Die Geschichte vom (Er-)Finder der „böhmischen Ilias“ und ihre mediale Verbreitung“ (26. Münchner Bohemisten-Treffen, March 11, 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, 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, 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, Munich)
• “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, 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, 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, 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, October 2, Marburg) 

2025

• “Geschichte und Geschichtspolitik im digitalen Raum – das Beispiel Polen” (Colloquium of the Chair of East and Southeast European History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, June 12, Munich)
• “Geschichte (nach)spielen. Erinnerungskultur und digitale Spiele zwischen Re-enactment und Erfahrbarmachen historischer Möglichkeitsräume” (Annual conference of the IKDE, Zukunftsorientierungen des Erinnerns. Das Beispiel „Flucht und Vertreibung“, July 4, Freiburg i. Brsg.)
• “Viral Stories in the Habsburg Monarchy” (Poster presentation at the Central European History Convention, July 18, Vienna)
• “KI in der Lehre am Historischen Seminar der LMU” (Herder-Institut Research Academy, October 9, Marburg)
• “'Guys, tell me, please!' YouTube-Streams zur polnischen Geschichte und die Verbreitung von Wissen, Unwissen und Halbwissen.” (Let's Play History!Geschichtskultur im Spannungsfeld von Gaming und Content Creation, October 23 - October 24, Paderborn)
• “Spielen, 'wie es eigentlich gewesen ist'. Digitaler Historismus und Geschichtspolitik am Beispiel 'Aviators. War in the Skies' (PL, 2024)” (Slavic Game Studies II: 'Echt jetzt?!' Authentisches Erinnern und Erzählen in Games zu und aus Mittelost- und Osteuropa, November 5 - November 7, Münster/online)