Odra-Oder. History, Present, and Future of a European Cultural Area

Prof. Dr. Karl Schlögel

Born in 1948 in Hawangen near Memingen, Schlögel studied philosophy, history, sociology and Slavonic studies at the Free University of Berlin, and at Moscow and St. Petersburg. He completed his PhD in 1981.
In 1990, Karl Schlögel became Professor of Eastern European History at the University of Constance, and in 1994 followed his calling to join the Europa University Viadrina, Frankfurt-on-Oder. In 2003 he was made Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Studies.
Karl Schlögel already made a name for himself in the 1980s as an independent author and academic. Alongside works on the history of Eastern Europe, he was occupied by questions of cultural history. An earlier focus of his work was the confrontation with every day reality in Russia and the Soviet Union. In this, he followed an unusual path for a historian: rather than concentrate on written sources, his observations relied on his perception of built structures and the development of architecture and on his personal contacts in day-to-day life.
Earlier than his historian colleagues, he highlighted the fact that Eastern Europe and Russia belong to the fundamental stock of European culture. He studied politically and economically motivated migratory movements, as well as the every day life of minorities.
In the book “In Space, we Read the Time”, Prof. Karl Schlögel presented a systematisation of his work. In his understanding, alongside theoretical discourse, statistical empiricism and the history of events, the study of history should place more emphasis on descriptions of reality and how perceptions of reality are judged.

Prizes:
1986 Essay Prize of the “Tagesspiegel”, Berlin
1990 European Essay Prize, Charles Veillon
1999 Anna Krüger Prize of the College of Sciences, Berlin
2003 Anziferow Prize of the city of St. Petersburg
2004 Georg Dehio Book Prize of the German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe

Publications (selection):
“Reading Moscow” (1984), “The Centre lies to the East” (1986), “The Other Side of the Great October, Petersburg 1909-1921” (1988), “The Crisis of Russian ” (1990), “The Great Exodus. Russian Emigration and its Centres 1917-1941” (1994), “Go East – or The Second Discovery of the East” (1995), “Russian Emigration in Germany. Berlin, the Eastern Railway Station for Europe” (1998), “Berlin and the Urban Network of the New Europe” (1999), “Promenade in Yalta and other Cityscapes” (2001), “Petersburg 1909-1921. Laboratory of the modern” (2002), “In Space, we Read the Time” (2003), “Marjampole, or Europe’s Return from the Urban Spirit” (2005)
Karl Schlögel is co-publisher of the magazines “East Central Europe/L’Europe du Centre Est” and “Rossica”.

Floris Dreesman

Floris Dreesman studied at HFBK (Academy of Fine Arts) in Hamburg, where his teachers included Hinrich Baller, Heinrich Moldenschardt, Zaha Hadid, and Daniel Liebeskind. Many years of practical work as a design architect followed at Asmus Werner, Hamburg, and at Pitz & Hoh, Berlin. He won numerous competitions with these firms, e.g., for redesigning the Luther House in Wittenberg as a museum for the central permanent exhibition about Martin Luther and creating its new entrance hall. This project was awarded the Architecture Prize of the state of Saxony-Anhalt in 2004. Floris Dreesman has been working as a self-employed architect since 2003, e.g., as an exhibition architect for the firm Iglhaut+Partner on the project “ZeitSchichten” (“TimeLayers”) at Schloss Dresden.

Dr. Beata Halicka

Dr Beata Halicka graduated in German Studies at the College of Pedagogy in Zielona Góra, and from 1998 to 2001 she pursued her post-graduate studies in Germany. After completing her PhD, she took up a position as academic researcher at the University of Zielona Góra. She currently holds the seat for Contemporary Economic and Social History at the Europa University Viadrina, in Frankfurt-on-Oder, and is completing her habilitation with a study of cultural transformation in the German-Polish border region during the 20th Century.
In 2002, together with her husband, Beata Halicka founded the Institute for Applied Ecology in Skórzyn, Lubuskie Disitrict. The focus of her work there is the history and culture of the region. At present, she is involved in a research project entitled “Odra-Oder – the past, present and future of a European cultural region”. This project, which is being conducted in cooperation with the Copernicus Bureau, is headed by Karl Schlögel, professor of East European History at the Europa University Viadrina.
Beata Halicka is the author of numerous publications, the most recent of which was a book in two languages: Krosno Odrzańskie / Crossen an der Oder 1005-2005. Wspólne dziedzictwo kultury / Das gemeinsame Kulturerbe (Krosno on the Odra 1005-2005 – the joint cultural heritage).

Mateusz Hartwich

Born in 1979 in Wrocław, he took Cultural Studies at the Europa University Viadrina, in Frankfurt-on-Oder, where he is currently completing a doctorate in “Tourism and History”.
Mateusz Hartwich is interested in the problems of border areas and the history of German-Polish relationships and interconnections. He is chairman of the German-Polish association “transkultura” and the co-initiator of various cross-border projects such as "slubice.de & frankfurt.pl" and "terra transoderana - histories in flow". More recently, in Frankfurt-on-Oder, he has been establishing an independent “Institute for Applied History” which should make the history of the border area more accessible. Alongside this, Mateusz Hartwich works as a translator and is part of the Berlin-based, German-Polish advertising agency “Piktogram”. He is also an editor with the German-Polish online press service “Transodra Spezial”. For more information (German and Polish language only) please visit www.hartwich.pl.

Bettina Vismann

Bettina Vismann studied architecture and town planning at Stuttgart Technical University, Kingston Polytechnic in London and at the Cooperative Technical College (ETH) in Zurich. She then worked for the architects Armstrong Associates in London, Suter & Suter in Sauerbruch and Hutton in Berlin, concentrating on design and implementation. During her periods of teaching - at the TU Berlin (assistant to Prof. Tim Heide) and at the ETH Zurich (assistant to Prof. Marc Angélil) - and while with Armstrong Associates in London, Vismann took charge of diverse university exhibition projects. 1999 saw a cooperation with Annemarie Hürlimann in the exhibition concept “Fremdkörper” (Foreign Bodies) for the German Museum of Hygiene in Dresden. She has also contributed her own works to numerous exhibitions, for example at the 9th Architectural Biennale in Venice, at Art Frankfurt 2002 (with “GUT_2”), and with an enterable room installation in the “OZ” exhibition, in C-base Berlin.

Since 2002, Bettina Vismann has worked as a freelance architect. Together with Floris Dreesman she founded the DREESMAN VISMAN Office in 2004, a design bureau for architecture and interior design. Alongside her architectural practice, she is researching a theoretical paper on the phenomenon of dust.