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...
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?