A Breath of Valkyrie on the Baltic Sea. Nationalism and Romanticism in the Literature of East Prussia

What do a knight of the Teutonic Order, the Song of the Nibelungs and Hermann the Cheruscan have in common? They were all intended to legitimize the founding of the German Empire in 1871, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. This was a "unification from above" for which Prussia waged three "wars of unification". The ostensibly common cultural heritage of "Germanness" in the Middle Ages was one of the elements that was supposed to make it easier for citizens from, say, Bavaria, Hesse, Prussia and Saxony to become "Germans". Another element was the national demarcation of the Empire from its neighbors, especially France, which had been defeated in 1813/15 and 1871.
Monument engineers, composers and writers were tasked with inventing an honorable tradition for the Empire. The results included the Hermann Monument in the Teutoburg Forest, the Germania statue in Niederwald and Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" – which in reality criticized rule and violence. Romanticism had already rediscovered the Middle Ages and chivalry and painted them in the most beautiful colors.

The new cabinet exhibition of the East Prussian State Museum embarks on an associative search for traces of this era, based on some examples of East Prussian literature, which strongly influenced the zeitgeist. From the poet of the wars of liberation, Max von Schenkendorff, to the romanticist E.T.A. Hoffmann and Johann Gottfried Herder, powerful authors were at work – their literature providing later authors with inspiration for a more "national" tone.

Examples of this are writers in 
Ostpreußen
deu. Ostpreußen, eng. East Prussia, pol. Prusy Wschodnie, lit. Rytų Prūsija, rus. Восто́чная Пру́ссия, rus. Vostóchnaia Prússiia

Ostpreußen ist der Name der ehemaligen, bis 1945 bestehenden östlichsten preußischen Provinz, deren Ausdehnung (ungeachtet historisch leicht wechselnder Grenzverläufe) ungefähr der historischen Landschaft Preußen entspricht. Die Bezeichnung kam erst in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts in Gebrauch, als neben dem 1701 zum Königreich erhobenen Herzogtum Preußen mit seiner Hauptstadt Königsberg weitere, zuvor polnische Gebiete im Westen (beispielsweise das sog. Preußen Königlichen Anteils mit dem Ermland und Pommerellen) zu Brandenburg-Preußen kamen und die neue Provinz Westpreußen bildeten.
Heutzutage gehört das Gebiet der ehemaligen preußischen Provinz überwiegend zu Russland (Oblast Kaliningrad) und Polen (Woiwodschaft Ermland-Masuren). Das ehemalige sog. Memelland (auch Memelgebiet, lit. Klaipėdos kraštas) kam erstmals 1920 und erneut ab 1945 zu Litauen.

 such as Ernst Wichert (1831-1902) or Felix Dahn ("A Struggle for Rome"), who held up the Prussian Order State as the model of martial German unification and praised the millennia-old self-sacrifice of the 'brave Teutons'. When he was appointed to the Albertus University in 
Kaliningrad
deu. Königsberg, rus. Калинингра́д

Kaliningrad is a large city in present-day Russia with almost 500,000 inhabitants. It is located in the Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland, which roughly corresponds to the northern part of the Prussian province of East Prussia before 1945 (today excluding Lithuanian areas). Before 1945, Königsberg was not only the capital of the province and the northeasternmost major city in Prussia, but also royal capital and residence in Prussia from 1724.

, Felix Dahn apparently saw himself as a kind of knight of the Teutonic Order. He wanted to teach "German law in the farthest reaches of East Markland" and, as an admirer of Richard Wagner, still sensed a "Walkürenhauch" (a breath of Valkyrie) on the Baltic Sea.

The exhibition shows the context of the founding of the Reich, important sources from Romantic literature, Dahn and Wichert as literary figures in Königsberg and in the Reich, the monumentalizing invention of a supposedly great national past, as well as its reception and consequences.

The accompanying program has been adapted to suit the current pandemic conditions. The plan moving forward includes lectures on the position of East Prussia in the German Reich and guided tours of the exhibition. Please check for announcements on the museum's website.