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"Wait till the Scots come!"
This old Prussian proverb exhorts us to be patient and wait for the right opportunity. But what does this have to do with the far north of Great Britain? The answer leads us to Gdansk. In the early modern era, the port city attracted numerous merchant ships from the Baltic region and beyond. Some even came from as far away as Scotland to seek their fortune there.
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"What you can carry on your own"
On November 18, 1944, nine-year-old Elsa Beck flees the Hungarian village of Máriakéménd with her mother and sister. Elsa's mother allows her to take with her what she can carry herself. Elsa decides to take her school suitcase. Today, this is held in the Danube Swabian Central Museum in Ulm.
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A Doctor and his Military Case
In March 2015, a military case from the First World War was donated to the Transylvanian Museum. It accompanied Dr. Wilhelm Hager during World War I to the southern front – to Bosnia and the Isonzo, and then to the eastern front, to Galicia, Bukovina, Bessarabia and, finally, in 1918 to South Tyrol. Also as a Romanian citizen after 1918, Dr. Hager once again had to fight, this time on the side of the Romanian army. In 1919-1920 he took part in the campaign on the Tisza River as a medical officer of the reserve (medic cǎpitan).
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A Steinway for Eugen d'Albert?
In the “Eichendorff Hall” of Haus Schlesien in Königswinter there is a Steinway grand piano made of lemon wood. It is a noteworthy museum object not only because the famous Steinway & Sons lettering is emblazoned on it, but also, and above all, because it was owned by Gerhart Hauptmann, the 1912 Nobel Prize winner for literature.
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A Transylvanian church fur from South Africa
Among the numerous pieces of traditional costume at the Transylvanian Museum in Gundelsheim is one whose change of ownership and the resulting journey render it a fitting symbol of the collective fate of entire families, indeed entire Saxon village communities from northern Transylvania in the 20th century.
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A divided city?
Around 1900, the city of Posen (now Poznań) was divided into a German Posen and a Polish Poznań. This is at least the impression given by the sources on population and spatial politics in the city. A look at everyday life and especially urban entertainment culture, however, gives us a more differentiated perspective.
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A toolbox with a secret compartment
Many museum objects hold secrets: Not infrequently, their origin and maker, their age, or their various owners are hardly known, if at all. Often, one has to rely on assumptions and guesses. A toolbox from present-day Kazakhstan, however, is a bearer of secrets in more ways than one.
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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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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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Between Polish Metropolis and Provincial Prussian Town
The period of Prussian rule in Warsaw has traditionally received little attention and is usually interpreted as an early climax of Prussian-German expansionism in Poland. Yet it was also a time when, under the influence of the Enlightenment, a number of important educational initiatives developed in the city.
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Capital of the Saxon Garden Baroque on the Vistula River
The cartographic drawings of Warsaw from 1730-1762, preserved in the Dresden and Warsaw collections, illustrate the architectural garden city where the artistic ideas of the Saxon Baroque were crystallized. These exceptional documents bear testimony to a golden era where the urban landscape and cultural life of the city grew and flourished, stimulated by the patronage of the Saxon royal court, the great families of the Polish nobility, and the cooperation of Polish and Saxon craftsmen and artists.
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Down the Danube in the Ulm Box
A flat-bottomed wooden boat with a hut on top, sides painted in black and white stripes, and two very long oars at the front and back – that's an "Ulmer Schachtel" (Ulm box). This vessel, which seems curious today, was once an important means of transport on the Danube.
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Edina's beach bag
A blue and white striped bag with white handles - at first glance an inconspicuous beach bag. But it tells the moving story of the then 33-year-old Edina Rizvanović's flight from what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina to Ulm.
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Farewell after 500 years
A document in the Silesian Museum in Görlitz testifies to the acquisition of the village of Gleinitz by the brothers Nikolaus, Georg and Ladislaus von Niebelschütz in 1446. It was only by chance that the descendent of the Niebelschütz family, Harald von Niebelschütz, then 15 years old, saved the document in 1945 and donated it to the museum in 2017.
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Fasting Rules Become Food Taboos
In almost all religions, dietary rules and food taboos play an important role. The example of the Russian Old Believers shows the importance that food practices and body images can have in differentiating them from those of other faiths.
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From Brothers to Business Partners
The Train of Brotherhood and Unity was founded in 1961 as a grassroots commemorative initiative by Slovenian and Serbian journalists. Eventually, it became a manifestation of socio-political cohesion among Yugoslav nations, and a ritualized instrument for economic networking between Serbian and Slovenian municipalities.
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From Sample Case to Museum Piece
Over 100 years, and it's still on the move – despite its rather plain appearance, this old brown case has had a rather impressive "career". It was once a sample case for woolen fabrics, a trusted companion on vacation trips, a means of transportion on the run and a piece of furniture in the bare dreariness of a home for refugees. Today, on loan from HAUS SCHLESIEN, it is an exhibit in the Museum of the Lubuskie Region in Grünberg (Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej w Zielonej Górze), and a silent witness to a hundred years of history.
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Gdansk’s “Soundscape” and Music Culture between 1800 and 1945
Can soundscapes of the past be reconstructed? What did cities actually sound like in centuries gone by? And do we associate certain sounds and soundscapes with the history of particular cities? This text introduces some possibilities of soundscape research, using the city of Gdansk as an example.
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