Herder Institute (Marburg)

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Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe -
Institute of the Leibniz Association
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association
Hensel Villa (left) and library and collection building (right)
Category: Research institute and scientific infrastructure facility
Carrier: Herder Institute eV
Membership: Leibniz Association
Facility location: Marburg
Type of research: Application-oriented basic research
Subjects: Humanities
Areas of expertise: History , cultural studies , geography , art history
Basic funding: Federal government (50%), states (50%)
Management: Peter Haslinger (Director)
Employee: about 100
Homepage: www.herder-institut.de

The Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI) in Marburg is an international, non-university center for historical research on East Central Europe. The Herder Institute is a member of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community .

In addition to third-party funds, the institute's work is primarily financed by the Federal Republic of Germany (the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media ), the federal states and the home state of Hesse.

tasks

The Herder Institute runs, organizes and supports historical, art and cultural research on Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania , Poland , the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as the Kaliningrad region . The focus is on the analysis of interrelationships and exchange processes in and with East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the present, with a focus on the network of relationships with the German-speaking area. Another concern is the comparative consideration of the history of East Central Europe and its neighboring regions (especially Austria , Hungary , Belarus and the Ukraine ) in a pan-European comparative context.

As a scientific infrastructure facility, the Herder Institute provides media and materials for historical research on East Central Europe. It has one of the world's most important research libraries on the historical region of East Central Europe as well as extensive scientific collections. In university teaching, the Herder Institute cooperates closely with the Eastern European focus in the Faculty of History and Cultural Studies at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen , the Gießen Center for Eastern Europe (GiZO) and the International Graduate Center for the Study of, which is also located in Gießen Culture (GCSC), also with the Department of History and Cultural Studies at the Philipps University of Marburg . Since 2006, the position of director of the Herder Institute has been linked to a professorship for the history of East Central Europe at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, which is jointly appointed by the institute and the university.

Departments

Research library

The Herder Institute library collects books, magazines, newspapers, CD-ROMs, CDs, DVDs, electronic resources, videos, records and sheet music. It offers one of the most extensive and qualitatively most significant library holdings on the history, culture and regional studies of East Central Europe. Particularly when it comes to the collection of “ gray literature ” that is difficult to obtain , the aim is to be as complete as possible. The holdings should be emphasized:

  • Samizdat
  • Music
  • Special collections
  • Newspaper archive with newspaper collection (bound newspapers and roll films ) and newspaper clippings archive (1952 to 1999, East Central Europe and the former GDR ), supplemented by a special collection on the interwar period .

In addition, the library is involved in the development of web-based specialist and information offers, such as the Virtual Specialized Library for Eastern Europe (ViFaOst) , and operates a multilingual online research system for the entire community in cooperation with partner institutions from Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania scientifically relevant literature on the history of East Central Europe ("Bibliography Portal").

Scientific collections

In the department, the Herder Institute collects, archives and preserves valuable and mostly unique holdings of the East Central European cultural heritage. The collections consist of three areas:

  • Image archive with image carriers of all kinds, in particular on topography as well as on the art and cultural history of Eastern Central Europe (16th to 21st centuries)
  • Map collection with topographical and thematic maps, old maps and vertical aerial photographs
  • Document collection with classic archive material from the 13th to the 21st century; largest archive on Baltic history in Germany

In addition to the continuous indexing and digitization of the content, the communication of the collections to a broader public in the form of lectures, exhibitions, print publications and multimedia web offers is one of the central tasks of the department. Prominent examples are the series Dehio - Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland and the Historical-Topographical Atlas of Silesian Cities published both in printed form and as an interactive online application . The Herder Institute's document collection was awarded the Hessian Archive Prize in 2009 .

Digital research and information infrastructures

The “Digital Research and Information Infrastructures” department at the Herder Institute works at an interface between research and infrastructure.

The tasks of the department include:

  • Support and further development of the IT infrastructure of the Herder Institute
  • IT support for all departmental and project plans
  • Advice and implementation of qualification offers
  • Development and operation of digital research infrastructures
  • Integration and expansion of online offers
  • Bundling of the institute's activities in the digital humanities

The department provides advice and qualification offers, coordinates working groups and is active in research projects such as research data management.

Science forum

A central concern of the Herder Institute is to offer historical East Central European research an international forum for discussion and to convey the results of research to a broader public. Various cross-sectional tasks are coordinated in the Science Forum department:

  • Third-party funded joint projects
  • Promotion of young talent, in particular
  • Summer schools and youth conferences
  • Leibniz Graduate School ( Leibniz Graduate School "History, Knowledge, Media in East Central Europe" ) with a focus on history, knowledge, media in East Central Europe and transnational knowledge cultures
  • Scholarship program for scientists
  • Events such as international and interdisciplinary specialist conferences and workshops

In addition, the department's own publishing house, Herder Institute, is assigned. This publishes important studies and source editions on the history of East Central Europe in five series as well as the Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung / Journal of East Central European Studies and publishes the digital source edition of documents and materials on East Central European history for university teaching.

history

The so-called Hensel Villa from 1906 houses, among other things, the management of the Herder Institute.
The Herder-Institut publishing house is located in the Behring Villa from 1896 (right) . The extension of the former castle café from 1927 (left) is used for conferences and by the institute administration.
The library and collections of the Herder Institute have been housed in the new building, which was inaugurated in 1973.

Founding time

The Herder Institute was founded on April 29, 1950 by the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council under the name "Johann Gottfried Herder Institute". In this a group of humanities and social scientists had come together whose biographical and academic roots lay in areas east of the later Oder-Neisse border . The historical commissions associated with the Herder Research Council for formerly German regions and settlement areas in Eastern Europe were also involved.

The Herder Institute was supposed to support the Research Council in researching what it was called "countries and peoples in Eastern Central Europe" by providing scientific materials, through its own research and by issuing publications and scientific aids. As early as 1951, the Herder Institute set up a research library and built up an image archive, a map and a document collection from holdings of various origins. Since 1952, a press collection that is unique for Western Europe in this size and scope has been operated with its own clippings archive.

The university town of Marburg was chosen as the seat of the institute . The institute found a domicile in several historical buildings on Emil-von-Behring-Weg (today Gisonenweg) on ​​the Schlossberg, since 1952 in the so-called Hensel-Villa, the home of the Marburg mathematics professor Kurt Hensel , and a little later also in the Behring- Villa, an early work and residence of Emil von Behring . A functional new building was erected between the two buildings at the beginning of the 1970s, which gives the institute its striking appearance today.

Herder Institute and "Ostforschung"

The first phase of the institute's work was shaped by the biographies of the founding generation and the political framework of the Cold War and anti-communism of the 1950s and 1960s. In terms of personnel and content, this was still strongly committed to the traditions of German Ostforschung of the interwar period and National Socialism. Leading personalities such as the first presidents of the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council Hermann Aubin , Eugen Lemberg and Günther Grundmann as well as the institute directors from the early years Werner Essen and Erich Keyser represent this period. Important sources of the Herder Institute, which are of great importance today for research into Eastern European studies in the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era, came to the Herder Institute due to these personal connections and the resulting collection mandate. Much of the material came from the centers of German Ostforschung before 1945, for example from the Berlin-Dahlem publication center .

The language regulations in the Herder Institute publications of the early days were strongly influenced by the traditional folk-centered, often folkish cultural ideas . The reference to the namesake Johann Gottfried Herder , whose language-centered concept of culture was of great importance for the genesis of the national movements in East Central and Eastern Europe, should give this orientation legitimacy. The folk-historical approach began in the early 20th century as a methodologically innovative challenge to the traditional history of states and empires, but in Germany it quickly fell into the maelstrom of ethnic and anti-Semitic currents and proved to be extremely compatible with Nazi ideology. The principles of order and knowledge systems introduced at the Herder Institute in the 1950s bear witness to this orientation and to the hope that was still present at the time that one day it would be possible to regain the lost eastern territories . The focus of interest was on the cultural and political achievements of the German populations in the regions and states of Eastern Central Europe. The source material was recorded and stored according to the territorial order and context of the pre-war period.

Changes and reorientation

A critical appraisal of these connections has taken place sporadically since the end of the 1960s in the course of the new Ostpolitik , but only systematically since the end of the 1990s, when the history of German Ostforschung and the post-war careers of Eastern researchers were the subject of fierce controversy in German history. Some of the published publications deal with the early history of the Herder Institute.

Above all, the generation change in German East European research and the change in the overall political climate since the late 1960s had an impact on the Herder Institute. In the institute, many initiatives arose to meet with the Eastern European neighbors on an equal footing and the scientific relationships, especially with Polish experts, were massively expanded. Research personalities such as the Marburg Eastern European historian Hans Lemberg provided important impulses which increasingly oriented the institute's work towards a multi-perspective history of interwoven East Central Europe . On January 1, 1977, the Herder Institute was included in the joint research funding of the federal and state governments in accordance with Article 91b of the Basic Law (“Blue List”) and has also been a member of the Leibniz Association that emerged from these research institutions since 1997 .

The peaceful revolutions in East Central Europe from 1989–91 and the EU's eastward expansion finally brought about a fundamental reorientation of the institute's work. Free exchange of knowledge, freedom of travel and open archives in neighboring countries enabled new types of cross-border cooperation. Above all, the separation from the sponsorship of the Herder Research Council on January 1, 1994 and the establishment of the independent sponsoring association Herder Institute eV brought about a fundamental change in the self-image and the development of the institute's further activities. The realignment included a concentration of the task profile on historical issues, a determined opening and internationalization as well as the aggressive use of the emerging new media. Today the Herder Institute is considered to be a hub of scientific networking between Germany and Eastern Central Europe. In July 2014 , the city of Gdansk awarded the institute an honorary ambassador for its "longstanding services to the development of German-Polish cooperation and friendship" .

Directors

Web links

Commons : Herder Institute  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Herder Institute: Annual Report 2012 . Marburg 2013 ( online [PDF; 5.8 MB ; accessed on June 3, 2013]).
  2. ^ Senate of the Leibniz Association: Statement on the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI), Marburg . 2012, p. B-9 ( online [PDF; 659 kB ; accessed on June 3, 2013]).
  3. ^ Senate of the Leibniz Association: Statement on the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI), Marburg . 2012, p. 3 ( online [PDF; 659 kB ; accessed on June 3, 2013]).
  4. ↑ Michael Farrenkopf (Red.): Working group Archives of the Leibniz Association: Members, holdings, tasks . Ed .: Working group Archives of the Leibniz Association. 2009, ISBN 978-3-937203-41-6 , pp. 36 ( online [PDF; 900 kB ]).
  5. ^ Herder Institute - Document Collection : Hessischer Archivpreis 2009. Retrieved on August 13, 2013 .
  6. ↑ a b Erich Keyser: The Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council and the Johann Gottfried Herder Institute . In: Journal for East Research. Countries and peoples in Eastern Central Europe . 1st year, no. 1 . NG Elwert-Verlag, 1952, DNB  011134038 , ZDB -ID 200048-9 , p. 104 .
  7. ↑ Dorothee Goeze, Peter Wörster: Herder Institute Marburg: Genius Loci . Marburg 2008.
  8. ↑ Erich Keyser (Ed.): In the spirit of Herders: collected essays on the 150th anniversary of the death of JG Herders (=  Marburger Ostforschungen . Volume 1 ). Holzner, Kitzingen am Main 1953, DNB  451469178 .
  9. ↑ Willi Oberkrome: People's history: methodical innovation and ethnic ideology in German history 1918–1945 (=  critical studies on historical science . Volume 101 ). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-35764-8 .
  10. ↑ Manfred Hettling (Ed.): Folk stories in Europe during the interwar period . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-36273-0 .
  11. ↑ Herder Institute Marburg (ed.): The Herder Institute: a research facility for historical East Central Europe research . Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-87969-285-8 .
  12. ^ Thekla Kleindienst: The development of West German East European research in the field of tension between science and politics (=  materials and studies for East Central Europe research . Volume 22 ). Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-87969-358-0 .
  13. ^ Corinna Unger: Ostforschung in Westdeutschland: the exploration of the European East and the German Research Foundation, 1945–1975 (=  studies on the history of the German Research Foundation . Volume 1 ). Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09026-1 .
  14. ^ Eduard Mühle: For the people and the German East: the historian Hermann Aubin and the German research on the East (=  writings of the Federal Archives . Volume 65 ). Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-1619-X .
  15. ↑ Horst von Chmielewski: Librarian Poland trips in dramatic times (1979-1983) . In: Herder aktuell . Issue 31, (July to December), 2010, p. 12-14 .
  16. ^ Senate of the Leibniz Association: Statement on the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe - Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI), Marburg . 2012, p. B-11 ( online [PDF; 659 kB ; accessed on June 3, 2013]).
  17. ↑ Herder Institute: Herder Institute receives honorary ambassador for the city of Danzig. Retrieved August 14, 2014 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 31.9 "  N , 8 ° 45 ′ 38.5"  E