Jan Plamper was born in 1970 and studied Eastern European history and Slavistics. After studying at Brandeis University and doing a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught Russian history at the University of Tübingen from 2001 to 2007. Jan Plamper is a Dilthey Fellow in the "History of Emotions" group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. He is the author of The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power, and co-editor of Personality Cults in Stalinism. His current projects include a book on the history of fear among Russian soldiers, 1800-2000, and a short book on personality cults in modernity.
