A series of lectures entitled “Borderland People”
In the winter semester of the academic year 2023/2024, the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wrocław is continuing its series of lectures on outstanding „ludziach pogranicza” (“borderland people”). The first lecture will already take place this Wednesday (8 November 2023) at 17:00!
Over the centuries, literature, culture and politics have been historical spaces in the German-Polish dialogue and are still platforms for encounters, exchanges and frictions. The German Enlightenment formed critical perceptions of Poland in its narrative, which, evolving more or less later, have permanently defined the German image of Poland and Poles – often confrontationally hostile – right up to the present day. They were certainly still alive in the last century.
The conditions for a dialogue capable of turning confrontation into partnership did not emerge until after the Second World War. At that time it was full of ups and downs, hopes and disappointments, but with all the difficulties and constraints resulting from the bipolar nature of the world at that time, it was persistently pursued by both sides. And just as the world matured for change at the end of the 1980s, so 1989-1991 also saw a breakthrough in the relationship of a free Poland with a united, democratic Germany. The negatively charged, mistrustful neighbourhood was transformed into friendly cooperation, even if, as is now the case, it is sometimes put to the test.
The individual lectures in the series “Borderland People” deal with outstanding actors in German-Polish dialogue, the “great lighthouse keepers” of the mutual opening up of Germans and Poles to each other in this period. They were, and are, men of letters, visionaries of the future, who treated the shaping of our mutual good relations as a task – they lived and live it according to the motto formulated by Hubert Orłowski for the Poznan German Library: “Neighbourhood obliges”.
Four lectures are planned as part of the series:
– 08.11.2023, godz. 17:00, Marek Zybura – Bronisław Hubermann (1882-1947): „Jestem Polakiem, Żydem, artystą i Paneuropejczykiem”
– 29.11.2023, godz. 17:00, Piotr Przybyła – Gatemakerzy polskiego słuchowiska? (Ludzie) Pogranicza w niemieckim radiu
– 13.12.2023, godz. 17:30, Anna Kurpiel i Łukasz Skąpski – Ludzie pogranicza i niemieckie dziedzictwo kulturowe
– 26.01.2024, godz. 17:00, Wolfgang Templin – Józef Pilsudski – Rewolucjonista i twórca Państwa
