'The Diaries of the Bohemian-Silesian Nobleman Rudolf Count of Stillfried-Alcántara (1827-1882)': Rudolf Count von Stillfried-Alcántara (1804-1882) came from an old Bohemian-Silesian noble family. The enthronement of Frederick William IV opened up a brilliant career for him at the Berlin court. For decades Stillfried was a central protagonist of dynastic historiography, the cultivation of tradition and the politics of remembrance. His activities are documented in his 32 diaries, which he wrote until a few weeks before his death. His observations, which are as everyday as they are very intimate, provide diverse insights into aristocratic life in the 19th century.

Joachim Bahlcke served as a conscript in the German Federal Navy from 1984 to 1990. He studied Eastern European, Modern, and Contemporary History, as well as Philosophy in Trier, Vienna, and Freiburg/Breisgau. He conducted a one-year research stay at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, along with additional research stays in Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and Poland. He completed his Ph.D. in 1993 with a study on the constitutional and social history of 16th/17th century Bohemia. From 1993 to 2002, he worked as a research assistant at various academic institutes specializing in historical research on East Central Europe, most recently at the Historical Seminar of the University of Leipzig. In January 2002, he obtained his habilitation that focused on the social history of the Hungarian-Croatian episcopate in the 17th/18th century. From April 2002 to September 2003, he held the professorship for East Central European History at the University of Erfurt, and since October 2003, he has been the chair of Early Modern History at the University of Stuttgart. From 1988 to 1995, Roland Gehrke pursued a degree in History, Public and International Law, as well as East Slavic Studies at the University of Hamburg. He obtained his Master's degree in 1995 and then entered the doctoral phase, supported by the Immanuel Kant Scholarship and accompanied by several research stays in Poland. In 1999, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg with a thesis on the Polish Western Idea up to the end of World War I. From 2000 to 2008, he worked as a research assistant at the Historical Institute of the University of Stuttgart, specializing in Early Modern History. In October 2009, he completed his habilitation with a thesis on Early Parliamentarism in Silesia between 1825 and 1845, and was granted the venia legendi for Modern and East Central European History.