Skip to main content
History and
Cultural Heritage
in Eastern Europe
Hauptnavigation
About us
Team
Authors
Editorial Board
Translators
Network
Contribute
Contact
Topics
Migration (hi)stories
Music cultures
Culinaria
Kopernikus#550
Ukraine
Spaces
Jewish life
Blog
Search
de
en
Research in the portal
Enter search term
search
News from the Copernico portal
Our newsletter keeps you informed about new content in the portal and the news from the Copernico editorial team.
Subscribe to the newsletter now
No, thanks
Organizations
(12)
Projects
(12)
Online resources
(10)
Collections and holdings
(8)
Journals and series
(8)
Funding programs
(2)
Exhibitions
(18)
Event series
(6)
Articles
(31)
Blog post
(1)
31 Results
Sort by
Relevance
Title
Chronologically
Filter results
Selected filters:
Categories
remove filter Node type:
Articles
remove filter Key words:
Cold war
remove filter Key words:
Workshop
remove filter Key words:
Migration (human)
remove filter Key words:
Early modern period
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
"Wait till the Scots come!"
This old Prussian proverb exhorts us to be patient and wait for the right opportunity. But what does this have to do with the far north of Great Britain? The answer leads us to Gdansk. In the early modern era, the port city attracted numerous merchant ships from the Baltic region and beyond. Some even came from as far away as Scotland to seek their fortune there.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
"What you can carry on your own"
On November 18, 1944, nine-year-old Elsa Beck flees the Hungarian village of Máriakéménd with her mother and sister. Elsa's mother allows her to take with her what she can carry herself. Elsa decides to take her school suitcase. Today, this is held in the Danube Swabian Central Museum in Ulm.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish romantic, poet, translator and journalist, was a migrant for most of his life. He also travelled to Berlin, Rome, Constantinople and other places for pleasure, scientific purposes and on political missions. These frequent changes of location show a mobile and transnational life story.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
Agata, Dorota, Iwona, Jolanta
"What luck that we had this kindergarten!" All four say. That was in the early 1970s. Agata and Jolanta now live in Germany, Dorota and Iwona have stayed in Masuria. Lehndorff Castle, the "Pałac", was a place they all felt happy. In those stately rooms they had a feeling of security and comfort, they played among the old oaks, went swimming in the lake. It was a microcosm away from the adult world with its worries and traumas.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Bettina Bouresh
"I’m a typical post-war child," says Bettina Bouresh. Born in 1950, she grew up burdened with German guilt and the traumas of her mother's family, who had lived in Allenstein until 1945. She herself felt homeless for a long time. Until one day she found her place: in Masuria. Here she found a home – and in Steinort Palace her life’s work. Today she is vice-chairwoman of the Lehndorff Society.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
Down the Danube in the Ulm Box
A flat-bottomed wooden boat with a hut on top, sides painted in black and white stripes, and two very long oars at the front and back – that's an "Ulmer Schachtel" (Ulm box). This vessel, which seems curious today, was once an important means of transport on the Danube.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
Edina's beach bag
A blue and white striped bag with white handles - at first glance an inconspicuous beach bag. But it tells the moving story of the then 33-year-old Edina Rizvanović's flight from what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina to Ulm.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Introduction
Emigration, Forced Migration, and the Iron Curtain
Eastern Europe has been a "migration hot spot" since the late 19th century: Initially as a core area of overseas emigration, then of ethnic forced migration after the end of World War I. Emigration during the Cold War was nearly impossible. Today, many countries in this region benefit from the European Union's Freedom of Movement policy.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Eva Anna Therese Puschke
As far back as the 19th century, the Puschke family worked as teachers in Steinort and in the neighboring church village of Rosengarten. They played an important role in village life and had close ties to the noble Lehndorff family. The last teacher of the dynasty was Eva Puschke, a "lay teacher" in Rosengarten from 1940 to 1944. After the Germans were expelled, she lived in Hamburg. She left behind a suitcase full of family documents.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
Home in a trunk of clothes - the Garlik family's traditional costume suitcase
This suitcase has traveled far – not, as one might expect, after the Second World War, but rather in the decades after the flight of the Nessner family. It was used to transport the traditional costumes of a Danube Swabian dance troupe from Baden-Württemberg as they toured to enclaves of Danube Swabians scattered around the world.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Introduction
Jews in Poland in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
The article offers an overview of Jewish history and the development of Jewish settlement in medieval and early modern Poland from the first recorded mentions of Jewish centers in the 11th century through to the end of the 18th century. As in the neighboring countries of Hungary and Bohemia, the Polish monarchs were also interested in Jewish settlement; the privilege of 1264 and its confirmations created the legal framework for this. Jews were involved in the economic and demographic development of Poland. The Jewish percentage of the urban population also grew, and their formative influence was particularly visible in the south-eastern provinces, which found expression in the concept of the Jewish "shtetl". In modern times, Poland-Lithuania also became a center of Jewish scholarship. The crises and wars in the mid-17th century brought an influx of messianic movements. In the 18th century, the impulses of the Jewish Enlightenment and the emancipation of the Jewish population were the subject of lengthy and lively discussion.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Liberation from forced labor and the search for a new home
21-year-old Janina Jagodzińska describes the arduous beginning of 1945 in Poland's new western territories.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Marek Makowski and Piotr Wagner
Two passionate sailors, raised in Giżycko, not far from Sztynort. Marek Makowski (b.1984) and Piotr Wagner (b.1986) left at a young age, took advantage of the opportunities on offer in a united Europe and later returned to the world they grew up in. Marek, an entrepreneur and owner of a sailing school, and Piotr, a self-employed interpreter, tour guide and cultural professional, share a tangible vision for Sztynort.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Maria Zarębska
When Maria Zarębska was born, in July 1948, the village of Sztynort was still scarred by war. A few Masurian families had remained living there, but most of the inhabitants – like Maria's parents – were newcomers. Everyone was struggling to survive, to get along with each other, to find their way in socialist Poland. For a child like Maria, all this was "normal." The curious girl later became an avid and perceptive chronicler.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Introduction
Migration
The term migration refers to spatial movements of people. But not every change of location is considered migration. Exactly which phenomena and processes of regional mobility are understood as migration in scientific, political, media or public debates is contested and subject to constant change.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
Migration to Southeast Europe in the 18th Century
Migration stories can be success stories. Migration is often associated with people’s desire to improve their living situation. However, this wish does not always come true, and so migration stories are often marked by disappointments and failures – like that of Michael Kreutzer.
show video
Thementexttyp
Interview (video)
Nicolaus Copernicus: The relationship between theology and science
Prof. Dr. Matthias Haudel is professor of systematic theology and has specialized in the relationship between theological perspectives and scientific findings, in particular with a comprehensive introductory book published in 2021. In this interview, he clarifies the widespread prejudices about the relationship between the Church and science during Copernicus’ time and continues along this vein to consider the possibilities of a dialogue that could arise today, e.g. between quantum physics and theology.
show video
Thementexttyp
Interview (video)
Nicolaus Copernicus: The state of source material and the history of research
Prof. Dr. Andreas Kühne was the co-editor of the 2019 edition of the Complete Works of Nicolaus Copernicus. In this interview, he describes what we can learn about Copernicus from the available sources and how the figure of Copernicus came to be politicized. He also describes how research into Copernicus could lead to new findings.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
Not a Moment to Lose
In 1944, the entire German-speaking population of the village of Novo Selo in Yugoslavia flee for their their lives as the Red Army approaches. Among them is the Neuburger family, who travel by horse-drawn wagon via Hungary to Austria.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
On the connection between migration, diet, and belonging
To what extent can diet create social and cultural belongings? What is its potential significance in contexts of migration? Russian German examples demonstrate the very diverse ways in which questions of identity and diet are connected.
Load more