Marek Tamm


Marek Tamm is an Estonian historian and professor of cultural history at Tallinn University. His research spans medieval Baltic and Livonian history as well as historical theory, historiography, cultural memory studies and digital history.
He has been a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences since 2021 and has served as its vice-president since 2024. In 2023, he was elected a member of Academia Europaea.

Education

Tamm studied history and semiotics at the University of Tartu and completed a master's degree in medieval studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris.
In 2009 he received a PhD at Tallinn University with a dissertation titled Inventing Livonia: Religious and Geographical Representations of the Eastern Baltic Region in Early Thirteenth Century, supervised by Jüri Kivimäe.

Career

Tamm is affiliated with Tallinn University, where he became professor of cultural history in 2015 and has also led the university's Centre of Excellence in Intercultural Studies.
In 2023 he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Scholarship and reception

Tamm's work in historical theory and memory studies has been discussed in academic book reviews and scholarly venues.
His co-authored book The Fabric of Historical Time has been reviewed in KronoScope and in the Estonian weekly Sirp.
An edited volume co-edited by Tamm, Making Livonia: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region, has also been reviewed in specialist forums and journals.

Editorial work

Tamm has served as editor-in-chief of the history journal Acta Historica Tallinnensia.
He has served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Philosophy of History.

Honors

In 2014, Tamm was awarded the grade of Chevalier of the French Ordre des Palmes académiques.

Selected works

English-language books

Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier: A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia. Ashgate, 2011.Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.Debating New Approaches to History. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.Juri Lotman – Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.Making Livonia: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region. Routledge, 2020.The Companion to Juri Lotman: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.The Fabric of Historical Time. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Works in Estonian

Monumentaalne ajalugu: esseid Eesti ajalookultuurist. Kultuurileht, 2012.Monumentaalne konflikt: mälu, poliitika ja identiteet tänapäeva Eestis. Varrak, 2008.