Prof. Dr. Martin Schulze Wessel

Main Research Areas

• History of religion in Central and East Europe

• History of empires in East Europe

• Russia’s social history in the 19th century

• Historiography and historical thinking in Russia

• History of Central and East Europe, among others Czech history since 1848

• Transnational relations between East, Central and West Europe

Curriculum Vitae

Born in Münster. In 1994 he earned his doctorate degree from Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis about Russia’s perception of Prussia from the 18th to the 19th century. In his habilitation dissertation, he investigated the Roman Catholic Clergy in Bohemian lands and Russian Orthodox Clergy in (Soviet) Russia as carriers of a process of religious transformation. He joined LMU München in 2003 as Professor of East European history. 2009-2011 Research professorship within the LMUexcellent initiative. Since 2012 speaker of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies.

Positions, Assignments and Memberships

• Speaker and Principal Investigator of the Graduate School of East and Southeast European Studies

• Leader of the Study Group "Empires" l

• First Chairman of the Collegium Carolinum – Research Institute for the History of the Czech Lands and Slovakia

• Speaker of the Elite Graduate Programme East European Studies (within the Elite Network of Bavaria)

• Chair of the German-Ukrainian Historians' Commission

• Chair of the Historische Kolleg's Board of Trustees in Munich

• Member of the board of trustees of the Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung [Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism] at TU Dresden

• Advisory board member of the German Poland Institute of Darmstadt

• Programme advisory board member "Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz" (LOEWE) in Hessen

• Member of German-Czech and German-Slovakian Historian's Commission (Chair 2006-2012)

• Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Former Academic Positions (selected)

• Chair of the Association of Historians of Germany (Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands, VHD), 2012-2016

• Chair of the Competence Network "Historische Wissenschaften München" [Historical Studies Munich], 2014-2017

• Member of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft's (DFG) Review board Modern and Current History, 2008-2016

• Advisory board member of the Warsaw History Institute

• Advisory board member of the Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam

• Advisory board member of the Georg-Eckert-Institut für internationale Schulbuchforschung (Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research) in Braunschweig

• Speaker of the International Research Training Group "Religious Cultures in 19th and 20th Century Europe"

• Former Leader of the Study Group "Knowledge, Space, Environment"

Edited Book Series and Volumes

• Editor of the Journals "Bohemia" and "Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas"

• Co-editor of "Geschichte und Gesellschaft"

• Co-editor of the book series "Schnittstellen. Studien zum östlichen und südöstlichen Europa"

Supervised Doctoral Theses

List of PhD theses under Professor Martin Schulze Wessel's supervision