Marek Tamm

Marek Tamm (born 4 November 1973) 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 (1998) and completed a master's degree in medieval studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris (1999).

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. His co-authored book The Fabric of Historical Time (with Zoltán Boldizsár Simon) 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 (Knight) 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 (with Linda Kaljundi and Carsten Selch Jensen, eds.). Ashgate, 2011. Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Debating New Approaches to History (with Peter Burke, eds.). Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism (with Laurent Olivier, eds.). Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Juri Lotman – Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Making Livonia: Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region (with Anu Mänd, eds.). Routledge, 2020. The Companion to Juri Lotman: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (with Peeter Torop, eds.). Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. The Fabric of Historical Time (with Zoltán Boldizsár Simon). Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Works in Estonian Monumentaalne ajalugu: esseid Eesti ajalookultuurist. Kultuurileht, 2012. Monumentaalne konflikt: mälu, poliitika ja identiteet tänapäeva Eestis (with Pille Petersoo, eds.). Varrak, 2008.