Wangener circle
The Wangener Kreis - Society for Literature and Art of the East e. V. was founded in 1950 in Wangen im Allgäu as a refuge for Silesian artists and scholars.
Emergence
The Swabian bookseller Carl Ritter had until the end of World War II not only successfully his bookstore in Opole / Silesia out, but also together with the teacher Willibald Köhler dominated the literary life of the city. Köhler had already set up and looked after the Eichendorff archive in Neisse , the place where Eichendorff died, and was able to take a large part of the documents with him when he was expelled. Back in Wangen, Ritter and Köhler planned as early as 1946 to bring together Silesian writers and artists who had lost their spiritual focus due to the expulsion during and after the end of the Second World War . Even an artists' settlement and a workshop for visual artists were to be built in the Allgäu.
In 1950 the founding members of the association came together with an expanded circle of friends, and as early as 1951, the Wangen Circle officially went public. The city and the then district of Wangen generously supported the plans. With their help, the Eichendorff Museum , the Gustav Freytag Archive , the Hermann Stehr Archive and a number of studios and artist houses were created over the years .
tasks and goals
From the beginning, the Wangen Circle had set itself the task of preserving, promoting and interpreting Silesian culture and history on the one hand, and always doing this in connection with East German, all-German and European history on the other. To this end, the association established the Wangen Talks as an annual conference as early as 1950 , which "serve the special understanding of the former Slavic neighbors and the reconciliation with the Jewish people". In memory of the Silesian poet Paul Barsch and the Breslau Poet School , the Paul Barsch plaque was awarded on the initiative of his widow Marie Muthreich -Barsch until the mid-1960s.
Wangener Talks and Eichendorff Literature Prize
The public annual meetings of the Wangen Circle are the Wangen Talks , which will take place for the 68th time in 2018. Co-organizers are the Stiftung Kulturwerk Schlesien and the city of Wangen im Allgäu.
The Eichendorff Literature Prize is awarded every year as part of the Wangen Talks .
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Wangener Kreis , accessed on July 17, 2018.
- ↑ Schlesisches Museum zu Görlitz : Wangen Talks , accessed on July 17, 2018.
- ↑ Conference programs and conference reports , accessed on July 17, 2018.