Collage der Interviewten des Themenschwerpunkts und einer Ansicht des zerstörten Charkiw von Vlad Vinogradoff

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Collage der Interviewten des Themenschwerpunkts und einer Ansicht des zerstörten Charkiw von Vlad Vinogradoff

The wounded city

Residents report on the attack on their city of Kharkiv

To the new thematic focus section

Titel
Copernico brings history to life

Organizations from the field of science and who work with communication and education around cultural heritage have joined to present information about the common history and the shared cultural heritage in Eastern Europe in a way that is both attractive and scientifically sound.

About us

Eine künstlerisch bearbeitete Fotografie einer Gebirgslandschaft im südlichen Polen

Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Yesterday and Today

Introduction

Jews in Poland in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

The article offers an overview of Jewish history and the development of Jewish settlement in medieval and early modern Poland from the first recorded mentions of Jewish centers in the 11th century through to the end of the 18th century. As in the neighboring countries of Hungary and Bohemia, the...

Introduction

Jewish History in Eastern Europe: The 19th Century

In Jewish history, the 19th century stands for a time of comprehensive change in all areas of life. Jews, who had previously seen themselves primarily as a religious group, now became supporters of various political or national movements. This gave rise to a range of new, constantly contested Jewish...

Introduction

Jews in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe

A History Told in Six Female Jewish Voices

The twentieth century brought monumental changes and unprecedented challenges to the East-European Jewry. Its story is told here in the voices of six Jewish women, whose lives were marked by its turbulent course.

Background article

Góra Kalwaria or Ger

The fate of the Jewish town and the Alter family library

Góra Kalwaria was one of many shtetls in Poland whose Jewish life disappeared in the wake of WW II. Also goods of Jewish culture suffered immense losses. Particularly interesting is the wartime fate of library owned by tzaddik's family Alter. The history of its dispersal during WW II is exemplary...

To the thematic focus section

From our blog

A Future in Ruins or the War on Education

Interpretive Knowledge and Russia’s War of Aggression against Ukraine

Call for Contributions: 1945: End of the War, Liberation, Occupation

Historical experiences and interpretations 80 years on

War Narratives, Literature and Reality

The Cassandra Method and the War in Ukraine

Westsplaining or Understanding

Perspectives by German authors on Russia's war in Ukraine

The narrative of our changing times

A critical analysis of its implications, challenges, and opportunities

Writing in Wartime

Ukrainian Literature in a Time of Extremes

Call for Contributions: Childhood and Youth in Eastern Europe

“Boys, boys, as you came, so you will leave here”

The beginning of the war and the Nazi occupation of Kharkiv in memoirs and oral histories

Data Are Never Neutral

The Impact of Russia's War Against Ukraine on Digital Source Criticism

Creating a Space of Freedom

The Museum of the Revolution of Dignity in Kyjiw

Backup Ukraine

Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage one volunteer at a time

ICOM4Ukraine on the Protection of Cultural Property in Wartime

An interview with ICOM Germany President Beate Reifenscheid-Ronnisch

Spaces, Borders, Projections

Editorial

Spaces - Borders - Projections

Editorial

Since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, questions around spaces and borders have increasingly appeared on the agenda of Eastern European studies. The contributions to the Copernico Portal’s newest area of focus demonstrate the important role played...

Background article

Malbork Castle, the Knights of the Teutonic Order and the "German East" in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Changes through time and space

How far did the “German East” extend? With recourse to Malbork Castle, which was “rediscovered” around 1800, German historical policy in the 19th and 20th centuries found very different answers to this question.

Background article

"Wait till the Scots come!"

Scots in early modern Gdansk

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...

Background article

Capital of the Saxon Garden Baroque on the Vistula River

Warsaw as the residence city of the Saxon electors and the kings of Poland

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...

Biographical Short Films: Notable Figures from Eastern Europe

Biographical short film

Vlad Dracula - The Impaler?

Few historical figures have captured the imagination of later generations as much as the Wallachian prince Vlad III Drăculea (* c. 1431). He is the historical model for the vampire lord Dracula - the world-famous protagonist of countless films and books, not least Bram Stoker's (1847-1912) novel...

Biographical short film

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884): Czech Composer, National Hero

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) is one of the most important composers in the history of European music. His work is directly related to the Czech national movement and takes up motifs and themes of Czech mythology, history and topography in a variety of ways. Probably most famous to this day is the...

Biographical short film

The Copernican Turn of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most important philosophers in history and one of the most important protagonists of the German-speaking Enlightenment. His creative period is divided into two phases: A first „pre-critical“ period and a later „critical“ period, in which the main...

Biographical short film

Marie Curie (1867–1934): Natural Scientist, Double Nobel Laureate, Genius

Marie Curie is one of the most famous and important people in the history of science. She was a natural scientist, a double Nobel Prize winner, and made a name for herself primarily with her work on radioactivity. She was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, which was then part of the...

Biographical short film

Kafka's language(s)

July 3, 2023, marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of the writer Franz Kafka, and June 3, 2024, marks the 100th anniversary of his death. There are many good reasons to take a closer look at this outstanding figure in the history of German-language literature. But how did Kafka come to write in...

Our thematic focus sections

Kopernikus#550

Eine farblich bearbeitete Graphik von Nikolaus Kopernikus

The “Copernican Revolution” represents an immensely important new finding in the history of humankind. The notion that the Earth orbits the Sun, and thus that the Earth was no longer to be regarded as the center of the Universe, broke with the prevailing worldview and was to have...

Culinary Cultures in Eastern Europe

Fotografie dreier aus Flaschen trinkender Personen vor freiem Himmel

Few topics are as multifaceted as the subject of food and drink. It ties individual sensory experience and culinary satisfaction to practically every other aspect of human life. It is also an important, but often overlooked, part of our shared cultural legacy. Eating and drinking, therefore, to a...

Migration (hi)stories

A photo of refugee children from 1946 edited with color overlays

European history is a history of migrations. This is especially true for the history of Eastern Europe. Join us in an exploration of this multifaceted and emotionally charged topic, which still polarizes people to this day. Spanning centuries and a vast array of themes, these stories extend from the...

"Sleeps a song in all things" - Music Cultures

A photo of two trombonists in a military camp, edited with color overlays, circa 1945

“Sleeps a song in all things”? Music is and always has been many things: a means of entertainment or elitist self-expression, an obvious or hidden bridge between cultures, a propaganda weapon or a symbol of cultural independence. And music and sound are part of historical, submerged...

Titel
Migration stories around Steinort / Sztynort Castle

Untertitel
Biographies of people, places and things

17 portraits that tell of the fate of the last lord of the castle, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, his family and the villagers - before and after 1945. And of enthusiasts who are bringing the dilapidated castle back to life.

All articles

Luftbildaufnahme des Schlosses Steinort