The GWZO's History
Researching Eastern Europe as a dynamic historical region
– this guiding idea has shaped the GWZO’s goals and working habits and has been the key to its success for over a quarter of a century.
Founded on 30 October 1995, today’s Leibniz Institute GWZO was the outcome of recommendations made by the German Science and Humanities Council shortly after German unification. With the dissolution of the GDR’s Academy of Sciences in 1991, parts of the Academy’s humanities and cultural studies research units were to be transformed into »Humanities Research Centres«. This process led to the founding of the »Society for the Promotion of New Academic Endeavours Ltd« under the aegis of the Max Planck Society. At the suggestion of the historian of Eastern Europe Klaus Zernack, a »Research Focus Culture and History of East-Central Europe« was established. Following a positive evaluation of this division’s work, the Council decided to include the »Research Focus« in its November 1994 »Recommendations for the Promotion of Humanities Research Centres« and suggested it be funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The Federal State of Saxony provided essential basic funding, and the GWZO opened its doors in Leipzig in early 1996. Its founding director was historian Winfried Eberhard. The institute has been cooperating closely with Leipzig University since and was officially linked to the university in 2003.
The GWZO as a Leibniz Institute
The GWZO has been a member of the Leibniz Association since 2017. With its incorporation into the Leibniz Association, the institute was renamed »Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)«. The abbreviation GWZO was retained as an established trademark. This integration went hand in hand with a structural and substantial reorientation of the institute’s work. The GWZO now has four departments: three scientific departments »Humans and Environment«, »Culture and Imagination« and »Entanglements and Globalisation« as well as the Division of the Directorate »Transfer and Publications«. The GWZO became part of the Leibniz Association under Christian Lübke (Director 2007-2021) and Stefan Troebst (Deputy Director 1999-2021). The Institute is currently headed by Maren Röger (Director since 11/2021) and Julia Herzberg (Deputy Director since 10/2023).
Location – A Trade Fair Palace: the Specks Hof in the Heart of the City
The GWZO is housed in one of Leipzig’s most significant historical buildings: the Specks Hof Messepalast or Trade Fair Palace. This is the city’s oldest, still surviving shopping arcade in the city centre – its history stretching back to the 15th century. The institute’s address, Reichsstraße, is a reminder that Leipzig was once at the intersection of the ancient trade route Via Imperii, running from north to south, and the Via Regia, connecting Novgorod and Moscow in northeastern Europe with Santiago de Compostela in the southwest. At the start of the 20th century, Specks Hof was the largest trading centre in the city, a place where merchants from across the world offered their wares. Many of them were business people from Eastern Europe. Specks Hof was, even then, a place of diversity, internationalism and cosmopolitanism – values for which our institute still stands today.
The GWZO in Leipzig
With its longstanding academic tradition, Leipzig is an excellent location from which to research Eastern Europe. Medieval trade routes connecting the East with the West and the North with the South were not the only things that crossed paths here: Leipzig was traditionally a trading centre for goods and knowledge. The first scholars of the university, which was founded in 1409, came from the Universitas Pragensis, today’s Charles University in Prague. The Fürstlich Jablonowskische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, that is, the »Royal Jablovanian Society of Sciences in Leipzig« – today’s Societas Jabloviana – testifies to Leipzig’s longstanding academic relationships with Poland, and Slavic studies have been taught in Leipzig since 1870.
The Leibniz GWZO Today
The GWZO currently has around 90 employees: local and international experts in the disciplines of history, archaeology, cultural history, art history, linguistics, literature and more. The Institute's staff also includes specialists for exhibitions, the editing of handbooks and the management of research data and professionals for public relations, library science and administration.
Disseminating Knowledge about Eastern Europe in Cooperation
The GWZO works together closely with several other non-university institutions such as the Frauenhofer Centre for International Management and Knowledge Economics (IMW) (known, until 2015, as the Frauenhofer Centre for Middle and Eastern Europe), the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, the Polish Institute Leipzig and the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow. It uses its diverse research outputs, public engagement activities and, in recent years, exhibitions shown across Germany, Europe and overseas to disseminate knowledge about the history and culture of Germany’s eastern and southern neighbours.
