Goethe Institute Krakow
The Goethe-Institut Krakow (“Instytut Goethego w Krakowie”) is a branch of the German cultural institute of the same name in the southern Polish city . The institute, founded in 1990, is currently headed by Daniel Göpfert and is responsible for German cultural and language work in six southern Polish voivodeships.
history
After the Krakow culture and information center of the GDR was closed in the course of reunification , a newly founded Goethe Institute began its work in the city in October 1990. The acting head of the institute, Christiane Günther, found the exposed seat of the Goethe-Institut, the Palais Potocki ( Pałac Potockich ). The building, which stands directly on Kraków's market square, has a purely classical facade from 1773 with allegorical figures. The arcaded courtyard shows borrowings from the Wawel Castle . During his visit to Cracow in 1880, Emperor Franz Joseph I also resided in the palace of Count Potocki.
Although the Cracow Institute started its work in the autumn of 1990, the opening ceremony took place in May 1992 when the library opened. Peter C. Seel headed the institute since May 1991. At that time, the program department was intensively concerned with the topic of transformation. Together with Krakow sociologists and political scientists from Jagiellonian University , the institute organized conferences and seminars. The language department took on the task of further training the teachers who quickly qualified or switched from Russian to German classes at the time of the change.
For the first time in 1993 the Goethe-Institut initiated the Audio Art Festival together with the Krakow artists' association “Muzyka Centrum” , which over the years has developed into a permanent fixture in the Krakow cultural calendar. It includes a kind of marathon of concerts, which are mainly accepted by the young audience. Thanks to the collaboration with the “International Graphic Triennial Krakow”, an exhibition with graphics by Albers, Beuys and Schumacher took place. Literature evenings and readings are an important part of the program work. Numerous events with well-known writers such as Günter Grass , Herta Müller and Hans Magnus Enzensberger took place in the rooms in the Palais Potocki . Between September 1994 and September 1998 Heinz Jürgens headed the institute.
From 1999 the writer Stephan Wackwitz took over the management of the institute. In 2002 the Goethe-Institut Kraków and the TONE Foundation founded the international underground music festival “Unsound”, which has been held every year since then and has become an integral part of Kraków's cultural scene. In addition to the Audio Art and Unsound Festival, the Krakow Goethe-Institut also initiated event cycles such as “What is Architecture?” And “Designing Modernity” or film festivals such as “The Love of Others”.
Angelika Eder headed the institution between September 2005 and February 2009, Roland Goll from March 2009 to July 2011, and Daniel Göpfert has headed the Kraków branch of the Goethe Institute since August 2011.
In 2012 the institute celebrated its 20th anniversary with a large series of anniversaries. The activities of the Goethe-Institut Krakow in 2014 are entirely dedicated to the subject of "play" in all its facets.
The Goethe-Institut Krakow currently reaches more than 150,000 people with its cultural programs and information offers. In 2012, almost 1,000 people interested in German took part in the institute's courses. The institute is responsible for cultural and language work in the six voivodships Podkarpackie , Małopolskie , Świętokrzyskie , Śląskie , Dolnośląskie and Opolskie . The Goethe-Institut in Warsaw is responsible for the remaining voivodships .
Web links
- Official website of the Goethe-Institut Krakau (German, Polish)