The Role of the Herder Institute in Collecting Materials about Estonia

On 14 September 2026, colleagues from the Herder Institute in Marburg (Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung) will visit the Literary Institute. The Herder institute is dedicated to the study of the history of East Central Europe and to collecting, preserving and making the region’s cultural heritage accessible for research.

As part of the visit, ethnologist and literary scholar Elke Bauer and art and literary scholar Antje Johanning-Radžienė will give two presentations introducing the Herder Institute, its fields of activity, and its role in collecting, organising and publishing materials related to Estonia. Particular focus will be placed on the institute’s image archive and document collection, as well as ongoing research projects exploring these two groups of sources. Dr Bauer and Dr Johanning-Radžienė will also introduce Copernico, the Herder Institute’s knowledge-transfer portal.

At 4 PM, Dr Elke Bauer will give a presentation entitled „Das Herder-Institut in Marburg und seine Estlandbestände“ in the Presidium Room of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. The presentation will introduce the Herder Institute in Marburg and its Estonica collections. This will be followed by a presentation by Dr Antje Johanning-Radžienė, „Das Baltikum im Transferportal Copernico“, introducing the Copernico knowledge-transfer portal’s resources on the Baltic region.

Since 2020, Dr Elke Bauer has been responsible for the Herder Institute’s document collection, with materials relating to the Baltic region forming one of its main areas of focus. Since 2019, Dr Antje Johanning-Radžienė has coordinated the Herder Institute’s project “Copernico. Onlineportal Geschichte und Kulturelles Erbe im östlichen Europa”. She is also Deputy Head of the Department for Knowledge Transfer, Publications and Academic Events. From 2026 to 2029, she will lead the knowledge-transfer and data-management sub-project within the research project “GenDem: Verflechtung von Antifeminismen Gender, Demokratie und Autoritarismus in Entangled Modernities”.