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Object story
A Steinway for Eugen d'Albert?
In the “Eichendorff Hall” of Haus Schlesien in Königswinter there is a Steinway grand piano made of lemon wood. It is a noteworthy museum object not only because the famous Steinway & Sons lettering is emblazoned on it, but also, and above all, because it was owned by Gerhart Hauptmann, the 1912 Nobel Prize winner for literature.
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Biography
A celebrated conductor from Liegnitz
He is considered the ancestor of the Berlin Philharmonic: Benjamin Bilse, born in Liegnitz, Silesia, was one of the most famous conductors of the 2nd half of the 19th century.
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Background article
Antje Vollmer
She is known as a Green Party politician and for her longstanding role as Vice President of the German Bundestag. After retiring in 2005, she became a freelance author. Her first book project “Doppelleben” (Double Life) tells the story of Heinrich von Lehndorff, one of the conspirators of the events of 20 July 1944 , and his wife Gottliebe. It is a moving biography of two young aristocrats that tells of their daring and their love.
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Biography
Artist and Art Figure
Monika Hunnius is generally known as a Baltic German author. She, however, saw herself as a musician – and was part of a network of musicians that extended all over Europe, to which Julius Stockhausen, Johannes Brahms, and Clara Schumann belonged as well.
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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.
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Biography
Expulsion from Wünschelburg in Silesia to Bredelar in Sauerland
A diary transcript documents the stations on the journey of Eva S.
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Object story
From Sample Case to Museum Piece
Over 100 years, and it's still on the move – despite its rather plain appearance, this old brown case has had a rather impressive "career". It was once a sample case for woolen fabrics, a trusted companion on vacation trips, a means of transportion on the run and a piece of furniture in the bare dreariness of a home for refugees. Today, on loan from HAUS SCHLESIEN, it is an exhibit in the Museum of the Lubuskie Region in Grünberg (Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej w Zielonej Górze), and a silent witness to a hundred years of history.
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Background article
How did a German Emigrant find his Way in Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the 19th Century?
How someone finds their way in a foreign country can be explored in different ways. In the case of Franz Xaver Bronner's travels from Switzerland to Kazan in 1810, and his return in 1817, a geographical approach is used to provide a fact-based foundation.
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Introduction
Jewish History in Eastern Europe: The 19th Century
In Jewish history, the 19th century stands for a time of comprehensive change in all areas of life. Jews, who had previously seen themselves primarily as a religious group, now became supporters of various political or national movements. This gave rise to a range of new, constantly contested Jewish affiliations.
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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.
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Cooking recipe
Mini-Napoleons
Every recipe tells a story – be it that of one’s own family, social group, region, of nation states or whole empires. A particular dish is thus always both a symbol and an expression of cultural concepts. A recipe booklet compiled by students at the University of Bamberg looks at “Culinary Forays Into Eastern Europe” (Kulinarische Streifzüge durch das östliche Europa) and brings together a series of recipes of cultural and historical interest. Below is an especially delicious sample.
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Object story
Moving Piety
The family crib was so important to his father that he took it with him when he emigrated to the USA. The report of a donor reveals what happened between its production in Waldenburg and the return to Europe, which made its donation to Haus Schlesien in Königswinter possible.
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Biography
On foot and by train from Silesia to West Germany
In a report, 24-year-old Hilda J.-S. describes her resettlement from Rohnstock (Silesia) to Rosellen on the Lower Rhine area in the summer of 1946.
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Object story
Papierówki – “Paper Apples”
A summer apple. The first to ripen. In Polish, it is called "papierówka", in German "Papierapfel" (paper apple). It once grew almost everywhere in Masuria and Warmia, including in the garden of Stefan Tymiec's grandmother, Gertrud. "It smelled and tasted delicious," he remembers. "And that yellow!" For his 60th birthday, he brought seedlings from a Polish nursery all the way to Wuppertal.
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Background article
Ruthenia quasi est alter orbis
"Rus' is almost another world" wrote the Krakow bishop Maciej around 1150. What was the basis of this differentiation? How powerful was it and how did it play out in reality? In search of answers, this article also discusses the dimensions and ambivalences of border demarcations.
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Biography
Samuel Fränkel
The Berlin Jew Samuel Fränkel (1773-1833) settled in Warsaw in 1798 as a representative of a large bank. Within a few years and across numerous political breaks, Fränkel rose to become the most important banker in a divided Poland. In doing so, Fränkel always successfully drew on his transnational connections to Jews and non-Jews in Prussia, Austria and Russia.
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Object story
Silent witness
Nothing is more closely connected with the circumstances of flight and expulsion than the experience of loss. Three touching objects from the years 1944/1945, which are now in the East Prussian state museum with German-Baltic department in Lüneburg, bear witness to this.
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Editorial
Spaces - Borders - Projections
Since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, questions around spaces and borders have increasingly appeared on the agenda of Eastern European studies. The contributions to the Copernico Portal’s newest area of focus demonstrate the important role played by space and border-related debates and the processes of appropriation and reinterpretation associated with them.
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Background article
Staesz Pfefferkuchen Spices!
The name alone is evocative of family traditions. It carries the promise of delicious cakes and biscuits, particularly in the run-up to Christmas.
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Biography
Stefan Tymiec Junior
Stefan Tymiec was born in Sztynort in July 1950. “I had a happy childhood”, he says. He hardly felt anything of the tragedies that his parents had lived through. His mother was German and remained in her homeland in 1945. His father was Ukrainian, one of many people who had been forcibly resettled from southeastern Poland. Stefan's childhood happiness lasted eight years, then the family set off for the West.
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