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Frombork
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Picture gallery
A City Inside the City
Some disdain it as an enclave of a consumerist, unthinking middle class. Others sing its praises and consider it a one-of-a-kind urban development project. No other urban district in Poland has been written about and discussed as much as the Miasteczko Wilanów. But where do the roots of this discussion lie? What part do literature and other art forms play in the reproduction of those narratives? And what does the reality behind the stereotypes and urbanistic homages actually look like?
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Biography
A diary report of deportation and arrival
Joanna Konopińska recounts her deportation by the Germans during World War II and her arrival in Wroclaw after the end of the war in 1945 in her moving diary “Tamten wrocławski rok”.
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Abraham Hannibal
Abraham Petrovič Hannibal (circa 1696-1781) was a central figure during the early stages of the African Diaspora in Russia. He was one of the first Russian Enlightenment thinkers and the great-grandfather of the most important poet and creator of the modern Russian language, Alexander Pushkin.
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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.
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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.
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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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Map and text
Commemorating Copernicus
Since the 19th century, numerous Copernicus monuments have been built around the world. Even today, new sites of remembrance honoring the astronomer emerge, especially in Poland. Each site has a unique agenda, narrative, and background.
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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.
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Background article
Góra Kalwaria or Ger
Góra Kalwaria was one of many shtetls in Poland whose Jewish life disappeared in the wake of WW II. Also goods of Jewish culture suffered immense losses. Particularly interesting is the wartime fate of library owned by tzaddik's family Alter. The history of its dispersal during WW II is exemplary for many Jewish library collections in Nazi-occupied Europe.
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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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Map and text
Important locations in Copernicus’ life
Nicolaus Copernicus rose to fame due to his interest in the stars. But where did he spend his life on Earth? Most of his sites of activity are found in present-day Poland, and many of them also relate to German history.
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Map and text
In Copernicus’ name
These days, there are a whole host of organizations in Poland, Germany, and the USA bearing the name Copernicus. Although they all relate to the same historical person, they have quite different goals.
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Introduction
Jazz in the Eastern Bloc
More than just music: During the Cold War, jazz suddenly found itself between all fronts – at the same time, it served as a propaganda weapon, a symbol of freedom and a musical bridge between East and West.
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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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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.
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Introduction
Jews in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe
The twentieth century brought monumental changes and unprecedented challenges to the East-European Jewry. Its story is told here in the voices of six Jewish women, whose lives were marked by its turbulent course.
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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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Background article
Malbork Castle, the Knights of the Teutonic Order and the "German East" in the 19th and 20th Centuries
How far did the “German East” extend? With recourse to Malbork Castle, which was “rediscovered” around 1800, German historical policy in the 19th and 20th centuries found very different answers to this question.
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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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