Präsenzveranstaltung

Many scholars are accustomed to thinking of European history as a linear movement that runs from west to east. Whether it be the spread of Magdeburg city law, Enlightenment ideas, or industrial technologies, the modern narrative of progress is often linked to a movement oriented toward a better future. Visually, we still conceive of this development as moving from left to right. In collective imaginations, this is usually equated with a line from West to East. Postmodern critics point to the nonlinear course of history, which has no clearly discernible goal. Postcolonial theorists argue that we should not think of history from the supposed center in Western Europe and the U.S., but rather reverse our perspective and rethink hisory from the periphery, which then turnes out to be not on the margins.

In a joint seminar, we will examine this perspective through the lens of Berlin’s public spaces and ask: what came from Central and Eastern Europe to the Spree? The most obvious thing is the absence of the Wall. Without glasnost and Solidarność, the late upheaval in the GDR would never have begun. Democracy arrived from the East on Unter den Linden in 1989.

At the end of this boulevard, beyond the Brandenburg Gate, the palace of the Polish nobleman Atanazy Raczyński was located in the 19th century. He built it as a residence in Prussia, where he was an important actor connecting Polish society and the Prussian state. Since the property was sold after his death, the historic Reichstag building now stands on the Raczyński site, where the Bundestag meets today. Parts of Raczyński’s art collection can still be seen today at Alte Nationalgalerie.

Another Polish site of remembrance in the center of Berlin was the Palais Schulenburg, which housed one of the city’s most important salons in the 19th century. A central focus of the seminar is the art and architectural history of the 19th century. Which artists were active first in Warsaw and Gdańsk before coming to Berlin? What traces have their works left in today’s capital of the Federal Republic of Germany?

The seminar will be held together with students of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.