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
(2)
Projects
(1)
Online resources
(1)
Exhibitions
(2)
Articles
(14)
20 Results
Sort by
Relevance
Title
Chronologically
Filter results
Selected filters:
Categories
remove filter Geographical context:
Bosnien und Herzegowina
remove filter Geographical context:
Elbing
remove filter Geographical context:
Rīga
remove filter Geographical context:
Masuria
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
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.
External Image
Thementexttyp
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.
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Publication project
Baltic Enlightenment
The project focuses on the ambivalences and asymmetries of the Enlightenment using the example of the historical Baltic States (Estonia, Livonia, Courland). In cooperation with the University of Tartu and other partners from the Baltic States and Germany, three volumes are being prepared, with the...
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
Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe
The Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe e. V. (DiFMOE) has been dedicated to researching and digitally indexing historical sources from Eastern Europe and operates a digital, freely accessible online library for their publication.
Teaserbild
External Image
Digital Library of the Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe
The Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe e.V. (DiFMOE) has been operating a digital, freely accessible specialized library with historical documents on Eastern Europe since 2008. In the middle of 2023, its holdings of periodicals included 254 titles, encompassing newspapers, magazines and annual...
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.
Teaserbild
External Image
Fernweh ("Yearning for afar")
In the exhibition "Fernweh" ("Yearning for Afar") you can let your imagination take wing and transport you to far-off places. Here you will discover sun, beaches and the ocean, but also unknown and mysterious landscapes. As the subtitle “From Jugendstil to contemporary photography” promises,...
External Image
Thementexttyp
Background article
Laima chocolate – a Riga icon
If you’ve ever visited Latvia, you’ll probably have heard of the chocolate brand Laima. Perhaps you’ll even have seen the Laima Clock, a popular meeting point in central Riga. Laima products have been among Latvia’s most successful exports all the way back to the 1920s. What’s less well known is that the company was originally founded by Jewish entrepreneurs.
External Image
Einrichtungstyp
Museum | Archive
Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum mit Deutschbaltischer Abteilung ("East Prussian State Museum with a Baltic German Department")
This museum, located right in the center of Lüneburg, is dedicated to the subject of East Prussia and the Baltic Germans. Here you will discover a fascinating region in East Central Europe, which, for 700 years, was shaped by the German language. Never before has a museum in Germany focused on the...
External Image
Thementexttyp
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.
Teaserbild
External Image
Permanent exhibition of the East Prussian state museum
East Prussia: Formerly the easternmost German province, today it covers parts of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. With its family-friendly presentation style and high-quality, informative exhibits, the East Prussian state museum conveys as complete a picture as possible of the history, art, culture and...
External Image
Thementexttyp
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.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Editorial
Steinort – a European place of remembrance
Steinort is a European place of remembrance, because it is a place where the most diverse stories and memories intersect, intertwine, and overlap. The interview project by Ulla Lachauer and Agata Kern explores these subjective strands of memory and reveals a number of different cultures of remembrance.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Introduction
Steinort/Sztynort Migration Stories
Steinort Palace in northern Masuria was the seat of the noble Lehndorff family until 1945. The last Count, Heinrich von Lehndorff, was one of the conspirators of July 20, 1944. These stories tell of the fate of the East Prussian noble family and follow the lives of people who lived in the village, which is called Sztynort today. Others tell of German and Polish enthusiasts who are working to revive the run-down manor house. 17 biographical texts explore themes of expulsion and new beginnings, tragedy and awakening in this multi-ethnic region.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
The Four Lehndorff Daughters
"I lost my home," Vera von Lehndorff once said, "but lost childhood is a better description." When her father was executed on September 4, 1944, she was five years old. Her sister Eleonore, "Nona," was six and a half, and Gabriele was two. Catharina was only 19 days old; she was born in the Torgau prison hospital. The Nazis had taken the girls and their mother Gottliebe into custody, a practice known in German as "Sippenhaft” or “kin liability". It was a traumatic time and was by no means over when the war ended in 1945.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Object story
The linen dresser
A simple chest of drawers, which came from the Steinort manor house, probably from the servants' quarters. In 1945 it was still quite new, made of pine, unpainted. Ten years ago, an old gentleman donated it to the Museum of Folklore in Węgorzewo, formerly Angerburg, along with other things he had taken from the manor after the end of the war.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Verus von Plotho
"There was no culture of remembrance in my family," says Verus von Plotho. He grew up in a cosmopolitan world. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1969 and grew up in Munich. His mother is Gabriele Freifrau von Plotho, the third daughter of Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff. There was hardly any talk at home about his grandfather and his resistance to Hitler, nor about his earlier life at Steinort Castle. Grandson Verus grew up – unencumbered – in the shadow of a dramatic past.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Wife Gone, Money of Course Too
An important stop for the young Richard Wagner is Riga at the end of the 1830s. However, there are no artistic reasons that lead the upcoming composer to the northeast of Europe.