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BKGE (en) » General InformationGeneral Information
The Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (Bundesinstitut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa) was founded in Oldenburg in January 1989. On the basis of its own academically independent documentation and supplementary research, the institute has the task of advising the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany on all questions related to the research, presentation and further development of culture and history of the Germans in Eastern Europe. The Institute is part of the portfolio of the Federal Government Representative for Culture and Media (BKM). The institute´s work is supported by an interdisciplinar advisory board.
Research Priorities
Publications, research and other activities of the Institute focus on regions, periods and themes that are relevant to the history and culture of the Germans in Eastern Europe. This includes research into the history of particular regions as well as the treatment of minority issues, comparative studies and detailed cultural historical research. The aim is not to suggest that the Germans in Eastern Europe were a uniform group, since this was not the case in the political, economic, cultural or social sense.
A characteristic of the region between the Baltic and Adriatic is its diversity, which has arisen not only from fruitful exchange, but also from highly conflictual encounters between different cultures, confessions and languages over the centuries. Numerous areas of Eastern Europe have historically belonged to many ethnicities, nations and states, and enjoy a double or even a multiple cultural identity. Most regions have also been culturally and historically marked by the Germans since the High Middle Ages; these immigrated from very different areas, later belonged to different confessions and made an impact as nobles or clergy, burghers or farmers, lords or subjects, leaving traces of their work behind them. This cultural heritage, which is so noteworthy due to the variety of historically changing relationships in Silesia, Pomerania, East and West Prussia, Bohemia and Moravia, in the Baltic region or Transylvania, can serve to create identities both in the regions themselves and in the context of a common Europe. Research into and preservation of this heritage is therefore both a historically conditioned and a currently necessary task.
Academic Co-operation
The Institute, which since 2000 is attached to the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, realises its research and teaching activities in co-operation with the University and by working closely together with scholars and institutions in the states of East Central Europe. Common research into the historically German eastern and settlement areas can prove to be a contribution to European integration, especially when such research addresses themes which have been previously controversial in national historiographies. The Institute"s concept of academic work takes into account the fact that only in supranational discourse can views of history be balanced, the results of history writing collated and made generally accessible.
Areas of Research
Since May 2004 the director of the Institute is Professor Dr. Matthias Weber. The institute is divided into four specialist areas: History, Literature and Language, Ethnography and Art History . The focus of work in the field of history is the transmission of knowledge about relevant archival collections in, for example, Poland and Romania, as well as the translation and publication of recent works from East Central Europe. The field of Literature and Language focuses mainly on the production of documentation on German language authors in and from the East of Europe and the critical edition of relevant works of literature. The main tasks in the field of Ethnography are the development of museum and other collections, also outside Germany, and the historiographical analysis of 20th century "folk culture research" (Volkskulturforschung). The field of Art History focuses on the documentation, analysis, conservation and presentation of all kinds of artistic works - architecture, painting, sculpture and crafts - in and from the regions of East Central Europe.
Publications
The Institute has published an interdisciplinary academic series of monographs since 1992 (Schriften des Bundesinstituts) and a yearbook (Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts). Both series are open to German and international authors.
The yearbook includes, besides academic essays, annotations of important publications in the countries of East Central Europe. This aims to intensify the exchange of information and knowledge across borders. The development of sources in the archives of Eastern Europe through the Institute´s own research as well as through editions and translations of collection catalogues, will be continued.
On the website, under the rubric Online Publications, bibliographies, dictionarys, overviews of archives and monographic contributions to research are accessible.
The Institute takes the foreward-looking opportunity to conduct supranational co-operative research into the multifarious national and transnational culture and history of Eastern Europe.
