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
(1)
Projects
(5)
Online resources
(1)
Collections and holdings
(2)
Exhibitions
(3)
Articles
(19)
31 Results
Sort by
Relevance
Title
Chronologically
Filter results
Selected filters:
Categories
remove filter Geographical context:
Steinort
remove filter Geographical context:
Pomorze Gdańskie
remove filter Geographical context:
Corona
Teaserbild
External Image
1920 - A province disappears
The First World War was an important caesura in the history of the province of West Prussia. The cornerstones negotiated in the Treaty of Versailles ended the integration of West Prussia into Prussian territory and incorporated the region into the newly founded Polish Second Republic. This led to...
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.
Teaserbild
External Image
Bestandstyp
Holding
Bestandsbeschreibung Westpreußisches Landesmuseum
The collections of the West Prussia State Museum are aimed at audiences interested in cultural history, including local historians and school classes. The library and archive offer possibilities for in-depth study and can provide basic information for local history and family researchers.
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
Einrichtungstyp
Documentation center
Documentation Center for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation
The Documentation Center offers exhibitions, a library and a testimony archive, tours, workshops and events. The Center provides information about the causes, dimensions and consequences of displacement, expulsion and forced migration in the past and present. Particular focus is on the displacement...
Teaserbild
External Image
Encounters with a German-Polish cultural landscape
The history of West Prussia is very multi-faceted. It is an example of a cultural landscape on the Baltic Sea that has benefited from its advantageous location in the heart of Europe for centuries, but has also frequently become the political plaything of rulers. The permanent exhibition in the West...
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
Forgotten, but not lost
The seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 led to a major wave of migration out of Germany. Over 500,000 people left the Third Reich, among them numerous artists and cultural professionals. The exhibition presents works by artists in exile who came from former West Prussia and other...
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Editing project
Gedichte und Briefe aus der Verbannung (“Poems and Letters from Exile”)
In this edition project, all the poems Wolf von Aichelburg wrote in exile will be collected, along with precise details of how they were recorded and passed down, and accompanied, where appropriate, by the author's own statements or other contextualizing information.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Podcast
Hanna Schygulla
The actor Hanna Schygulla was 30 years old when she first met Gottliebe von Lehndorff in 1973. The scene of the encounter: the artists' colony in the old Peterskirchen vicarage, east of Munich. They lived there for thirteen years, their apartments backing onto each other. Despite their age difference, they had many things in common, not least the experience of losing their homeland. In the podcast, the years they shared at Peterskirchen come back to life.
External Image
Thementexttyp
Biography
Hannah Wadle
In 2009, Hannah Wadle settled in Sztynort to do research for her doctoral thesis – and stayed for a whole year. Gradually, her cautious explorations turned into familiarity and what began as a purely academic interest became a dedicated personal commitment to the town and its people. She learned to see the Lehndorff manor house from many perspectives. In 2017, she founded a cultural festival, and since then the palace has come to life every August.
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Research project
Interethnische Beziehungen im regionalen Kontext (“Interethnic Relations in a Regional Context”)
Over the centuries, Romanians, Hungarians and Germans have shaped the history and culture of Transylvania. Dr. Enikő Dácz at the Institute for German Culture and History in South-eastern Europe (IKGS) is researching how this interethnic coexistence was portrayed in the press in the early 20th...
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Research project
Literarische Stätten in Südosteuropa (“Literary Sites in Southeast Europe”)
Kronstadt/Brașov/Brassó: The multilingualism of this Romanian metropolis is reflected not only in its name but also in the city's literary history. Also, a recurring theme in the works of local writers was the city itself, as a space for encounters and experiences. A research project of the...
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.
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Research project
Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions 1918-1925
What effects did the upheavals after World War I have on local and regional actors – and how did they themselves actively shape these transformation processes? A cooperative project examined the Romanian cities of Kronstadt/Brașov and Hermannstadt/Sibiu and their German minorities as participants...
Teaserbild
External Image
Projekttypen
Preservation Project
Nimm ihm Saures! (“Take its Acid!”)
Historical holdings in a new guise: Almost 1,500 German-language books that were cleaned, deacidified, restored, or rebound and protectively packaged as part of the project "Nimm ihm Saures!" (“Take its Acid!”) have returned to the library of the Institute for German Culture and History of...
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.
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.
Load more