After completing my PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2019 I worked as Departmental Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Oxford and was the Mark Kaplanoff Research Fellow in History at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. I joined UiB in February 2024. 

My work focusses principally on twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. My first book, "Prussia in the Historical Culture of the German Democratic Republic: Communists and Kings", was released with Oxford University Press in 2022. An edited volume (with Paul Betts) entitled "Rethinking Socialist Space in the Twentieth Century" appeared in 2024. My principal current project concerns the history of Esperanto in Cold War Europe.

In addition, I have published articles on themes concerning architecture, heritage, time and memory in communist Eastern Europe. Other research interests of mine include the history of 'National Bolshevism' before 1945, the Revolutions of 1989, language politics, and "chronopolitics" in Central Europe. I also comment on contemporary politics at https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/contributors/articles/marcus-colla

Some of my more recent articles and chapters include:

"Von Honecker zur Hyperrealität. Erinnerung und Bedeutungslosigkeit in Berlin" in Böick, Goschler and Jessen (eds), Jahrbuch Deutsche Einheit (2024) (forthcoming)

"A Monument to Friendship: Socialist Modernity and the Reconstruction of Tashkent, 1966-1975" in  Colla and Betts (eds), Rethinking Socialist Space in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

With Adéla Gjuričová, "1989: The Chronopolitics of Revolution", History and Theory 62, 4 (2023), pp. 45-65

 

I am an editor of the De Gruyter book series 'Time and Periodization in History' and would be very happy to hear from prospective authors.

Book review

• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2024). Review: Tobias Becker, ‘Yesterday: A New History of Nostalgia’. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2024). Review: Alexey Tikhomirov, The Stalin Cult in East Germany and the Making of the Postwar Soviet Empire, 1945–1961 . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2023). Review: Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane and Patrice G. Poutrus (eds), After Auschwitz: The Difficult Legacies of the GDR . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2022). Review: Clare Copley, Nazi Buildings: Cold War Traces and Governmentality in Post-Unification Berlin. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2022). Review: Franziska Klemstein, Denkmalpflege zwischen System und Gesellschaft. Vielfalt denkmalpflegerischer Prozesse in der DDR (1952–1975) . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2022). Review: Florian Urban, Postmodern Architecture in Socialist Poland: Transformation, Symbolic Form and National Identity . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2021). Review: Andrew Demshuk, Bowling for Communism: Urban Ingenuity at the End of East Germany. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2021). Review: Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2020). Review: Edward Saunders, Kaliningrad and Cultural Memory: Cold War and Post-Soviet Representations of a Resettled City . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2020). Review: Vladimir Kulic (ed.), Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society under Late Socialism . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Review: Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, The Fourth Reich: The Spectre of Nazism from World War II to the Present, . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Review: Roman Krakovsky, State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia: Transforming the Everyday from WWII to the Fall of the Berlin Wall . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Review: Stephan Ehrig, Marcel Thomas and David Zell (eds), The GDR Today: New Interdisciplinary Approaches to East German History, Memory and Culture. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Review: Albert Earle Gurganus, Kurt Eisner: A Modern Life. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Review: Cornelia Wilhelm (ed.), Migration, Memory, and Diversity: Germany from 1945 to the Present . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2018). Review: Paul Stangl, Risen from Ruins: The Cultural Politics of Rebuilding East Berlin (Stanford, 2018). (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2018). Review: Andrew Demshuk, Demolition on Karl Marx Square: Cultural Barbarism and the People's State in 1968 . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2017). Review: Simon Ward, Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin: Framing the Asynchronous City, 1957-2012 . (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2017). Review: Matthias Grünzig, Für Deutschtum und Vaterland. Die Potsdamer Garnisonkirche im 20. Jahrhundert . (external link)

Academic anthology/Conference proceedings

• Colla, Marcus Timothy; Betts, Paul (2024). Rethinking Socialist Space in the Twentieth Century. (external link)

Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2024). Von Honecker zur Hyperrealität Erinnerung und Bedeutungslosigkeit in Berlin. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy; Betts, Paul (2024). What, When and Where was Socialist Space in the Twentieth Century?. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2024). A Monument to Friendship: Socialist Modernity and the Reconstruction of Tashkent, 1966-1975. (external link)

Academic article

• Colla, Marcus Timothy; Gjuričová, Adéla (2023). 1989: The Chronopolitics of Revolution. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2023). Whither Prussia? Berlin’s Humboldt Forum and the Afterlife of a Vanished State. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2021). Rebuilding the Past: East German Preservationists as “Time Activists”. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2021). The Spectre of the Present: Time, Presentism and the Writing of Contemporary History. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2020). Memory, Heritage and the Demolition of the Potsdam Garnisonkirche, 1968. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). Constructing the Prussia-Myth in East Germany, 1945-61. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2019). The Politics of Time and State Identity in the German Democratic Republic. (external link)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2017). Prussian Palimpsests: Historic Architecture and Urban Spaces in East Germany, 1945-1961. (external link)

Academic monograph

• Colla, Marcus Timothy (2022). Prussia in the Historical Culture of the German Democratic Republic: Communists and Kings. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Reflections and Commentaries

• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The God in the Rubble. Review of Frank Trentmann, Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942–2022, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (30. april 2024)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Powerlessness of the Powerful, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (29 January 2024)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Review of Joachim C. Häberlen, Beauty is in the Street: Protest and Counterculture in Post-War Europe, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (6 December 2023)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Left Behind: Sahra Wagenknecht’s New Populism, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (30 October 2023)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Friedrich Merz and the Fall of the “Berlin Firewall”, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (1 August 2023)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. A New Solidarity? Olaf Scholz on the Future of Europe, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (2 September 2022)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Mikhail Gorbachev: The Last Revolutionary, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (31 August 2022)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Six Months of War in Ukraine: Europe’s Life and Fate, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (23 August 2022)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Turkey plays the Dance of the Go-Betweens in the Ukraine War, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (7 April, 2022)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Revenge of the Scholzomat, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (23 November, 2021)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Germany and Europe: “Ampel” Time for Reform, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (8 October 2021)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. German Elections: Any Colour You Like, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (16 August 2021)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Review of Robert Gellately, Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (13 April 2021)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Germany’s Ordinary New World, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (5 February 2021)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. What is History?, contribution to ‘Head to Head’ section, History Today (August 2020)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Vanishing Hegemon, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (20 April 2020)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. A Thuringian Eruption in Germany, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (11 March 2020)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. What 1989 Unleashed, and What it Didn't, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (4 November 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Review of Brendan Simms, Hitler: Only the World Was Enough, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (11 September 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Germany’s Enigmatic East and the Fate of European Populism, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (3 September 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Burden of Friendship: Germany, Trump and NATO, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (5 July 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Condemned to Become: The Future of the Past in Berlin, Royal Historical Society (8 March 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. A Certain Boredom: Taking Stock of Democracy in 2019, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (4 March 2019)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Merkel Legacy – A Study in Shades, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (2 November 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Germany – A Tale of Two Conservatisms, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (2 October 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Ever-Widening Atlantic, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (15 June 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The AfD and the Politics of German Identity, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (14 May 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Germany gets a Government, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (5 March 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Unending Nightmare for Germany’s SPD, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (30 January 2018)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Favourites of 2017: Pankaj Mishra’s “Age of Anger”, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (18 December 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Breakdown in Berlin, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (27 November 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. German Elections: The Collapse of Consensus, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (26 September 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Turkey’s EU Accession: A Useful Fiction, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (12 September 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Russian ‘Taboo’ and the German Election, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (22 August 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The G20 Hamburg Riots and the German Election, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (17 July 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Merkel-Trump Meeting: NATO, Jobs and Trade, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (20 March 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Merkel's Faustian Bargain with Erdogan, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (6 February 2017)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Trump: Not the Ideal Poster-boy for Euro-Populists, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (28 November 2016)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. Trump, Germany and the New European Order, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (15 November 2016)
• Colla, Marcus Timothy. The Future of Angela Merkel's Chancellorship, Lowy Institute ‘Interpreter’ (16 September 2016)