MITTWOCH, 24.09.2024 / 18h30
WIEN MUSEUM, VERANSTALTUNGSSAAL, 3.OG
A REGISTRATION LINK WILL FOLLOW / EIN ANMELDELINK FOLGT ZU SPÄTEREM ZEITPUNKT
For many years, historians dismissed the German Peasants’ War of 1525 as a brief sideshow of the early Reformation. Following Friedrich Engels, Marxist historians in the German Democratic Republic later assigned exaggerated importance to the war for political purposes. Having researched all available archives, Professor LYNDAL ROPER reveals the true significance of these dramatic events and their protagonists. Although this extraordinary uprising was ultimately defeated, it demonstrated the political intelligence of a neglected class which took Martin Luther’s revolutionary teachings at his word. The war also proved a turning point in Luther’s own political thought as the threat of social change persuaded him to stand against the rebels.
LYNDAL ROPER is the first woman to be appointed Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford. She is a fellow of the British Academy, the Australian Academy and the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Her work on Germany in the early modern period has won her numerous awards and honorary doctorates. Her 2016 biography of Martin Luther is widely hailed as the definitive account of his life and the development of his social and political thought.