Katalin Péter, DSc., ist emeritierte Professorin des Instituts für Geschichte (Research Centre for The Humanities) der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Dr. Martin Rothkegel ist Professor für Kirchengeschichte am Theologischen Seminar Elstal.

Dr. Márta Fata ist apl. Professorin am Seminar für Neuere Geschichte der Universität Tübingen.

Gabriella Erdélyi, PhD, is senior research fellow at the Institute of History (Research Centre for The Humanities) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Gabriella Erdélyi, PhD, is senior research fellow at the Institute of History (Research Centre for The Humanities) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Günter Frank ist Direktor der Europäischen Melanchthon-Akademie Bretten und außerplanmäßiger Professor am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie.

Dr. phil. Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer ist Professorin em. für "Neuere deutsche Literatur" an der Universität Bern.

Johannes Schilling ist Professor im Ruhestand für Kirchengeschichte an der Universität Kiel.

Dr. Günther Wassilowsky ist Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Siegrid Westphal ist Inhaberin des Lehrstuhls für Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit an der Universität Osnabrück sowie Direktorin des Forschungszentrums Institut für Kulturgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit.

This volume of essays surveys new advances in the cultural history of peasant revolts in Central and Southern Europe from the late medieval period up to the end of the seventeenth century.

The perspective of the rebels uncovers the everyday faces of revolts.

History from BelowNew advances in the cultural history of peasant revolts in Central and Southern Europe

The edited volume aims to re-contextualize revolts in early modern Central and Southern Europe (Hungary, Croatia, Czech Lands, Austria, Germany, Italy) by adopting the interdisciplinary and comparative methods of social and cultural history. Instead of structural explanations like the model of state-building versus popular resistance, it wishes to put back the peasants themselves to the historical narratives of revolts. Peasants appear in the book as active agents fighting or bargaining for freedom, which was a practical issue for them. Nonetheless, the language of lord-peasant negotiation was that of religion, just as official punishments used Christian symbols. The approach of revolts as the events of collective violence also highlights the experiences and memories of participants. How did individuals and groups use remembering and forgetting as a means of forging an identity for themselves? Instead of the narratives of the powerful that became the normative stories of history, the perspective of the rebels uncovers the everyday faces of revolts more forcibly. Finally, contributors examine how later narrators used the rebels for their own purposes, in other words the subsequent representation of the revolts and their leaders in image, literature and historiography comes to the fore. The volume aims to overcome disciplinary boundaries by bringing together historians and scholars of related disciplines including the history of literature, the visual arts and anthropology. The central contention of the volume - the cultural imprint of peasant revolts - is fully addressed, thereby filling a conspicuous gap in the currently available literature.