Online publication Archive Treasure of the Month Between 2007 and 2018, the Document Collection of the Marburg Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (DSHI) presented each month a particularly attractive or interesting archival document of general historical or political significance, as well as personal documents or...
Background Article Flirting on the ice By the 19th century, ice skating had developed into a fashionable pastime for the upper classes. The skating rink became an important public space, where social hierarchies, moral values and notions of gender manifested themselves. In the Baltic states too, skating was an integral part of the lives of the German population, as numerous memoirs attest. But why did it play such an important role for people during their years of childhood and coming-of-age to the extent that it would later feature so prominently in their memoirs?
Online finding aid Online search aid of the Document Collection at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe The online search aid of the Document Collection (DSHI) at the Marburg Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe is the starting point for research in the holdings of the most important archive on the history of the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia in the German-speaking...
Background Article Post-War Jewish Migration from the USSR and the refuseniki movement The post-WW II Jewish migration from the Soviet Union (and also after its dissolution) is one of the largest in modern history. Altogether 2.75 million Soviet Jews left the USSR for Israel, the United States, Germany and elsewhere. The position of the Soviet state with respect to emigration was remarkably ambivalent: in some cases, it was allowed and even encouraged, in others, others; it was controlled and strongly limited. The Jewish emigration movement that arose in the late 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s-1980s became an example of resistance and activism within the authoritarian system, which increasingly alerted international attention. In one way or another, it affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and changed the appearance of many cities and towns within the Soviet Union and outside it.
Unpacked In this permanent exhibition, pieces of luggage and the stories of their Russian-German owners, are "unpacked". These are stories are marked by repeated migrations, different homelands and identities – and are still today an important part of German society as a whole.
