En varulvs möte med marxism : En fallstudie kring maktutövning i 1600-talets Livland

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to explore how the court and church in Livonia worked together to remain the sole authority in the country. The Teutonic knights waged crusades in the Baltic countries during the 13th century, formed the country Livonia and ended up staying. In a country where an ethnic German minority held most of the positions of power it became important to legitimize the reason for it being so. This study will focus on the court case of Thiess from 1691, a man charged with being a werewolf and who refused to acknowledge the German ideology. To highlight the power structure, I turned to Louis Althusser and Marxism which theories included the repressive state apparatus and ideological state apparatuses. With those theories in mind, the use of text analysis and literature on the history of Livonia, the power struggle has become clearer. My findings show the importance of making an example of Thiess due to his influence of the peasants.