Malte Griesse

Malte Griesse received a Ph.D. from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris in 2008. In his book, Communiquer, juger et agir sous Staline. La personne prise entre ses liens avec les proches et son rapport au système politico-idéologique (Peter Lang 2011), he deals with the evolution of personal ties under Stalin. Drawing on a wide range of private documents such as diaries, memoirs and correspondences, he challenges the oft quoted atomization thesis and offers a new interpretation of Stalinist terror and the notorious show trials. Currently, he is leading a research group at Konstanz University (Germany) on revolts in Early Modern Europe as communicative events, dealing both with communication in, and communication on, revolts. In revolts, the extension of communicative spaces, initially for the sake of organization, had cathartic effects on the very conceptions of social justice and political order held by participants, which forced governments into justification of their rule. However, once authorities managed to repress resistance, they tried to enforce a policy of damantio memoriae in order to push away the burning question of legitimacy the revolt had raised. Commentators, analysts, and political advisers therefore referred almost exclusively to revolts having taken place abroad or in a distant historical past. The research group thus explores ensuing chains of cross-border representations and concomitant processes of cultural translation of revolt experience. The hypothesis is that cross-border representations had a major impact not only on public and learned debates concerning the legitimacy of rule and/or a possible right to resist, but also on governments’ further preventive policies towards real or impending revolts. At Harvard, he will focus on the impact of the English revolt (i.e., Puritan Revolution, Civil War) on political debates and struggles within the countries of the European continent.