The Herder Institute, Administration and Library /
Collections. [Photo: Herder Institute, W. Schekanski]

The Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – a member of the Leibniz Association – was founded on 29 April 1950 as the ‘Johann Gottfried Herder Institute’ in Marburg; the name ‘Johann-Gottfried-Herder Institute’ was also commonly used. From January 1994, it was known as the ‘Herder-Institut e. V.’, before being given its current name in February 2012. ‘Herder-Institut’ and ‘HI’ remain common names for the institute. Since 1952, the HI has been housed on Marburg’s Schlossberg; additional buildings were incorporated into the complex in 1953 and 1956. With the opening of the new archive and library building in 1973, it acquired its current premises.^[1] At the end of 2011, 85 people were employed at the HI, 75 of whom worked in research and academic services.

The HI was founded at the same time as its sponsoring body, the Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council (HFR). It was tasked with acting as a “repository of scholarly works and research resources […] to collect and make available the resources required for the new field of German studies on the East”.^[2]

In 1994, the HI was separated from the HFR’s auspices and has since operated as an independent academic institution in the form of an association. As a member of the Leibniz Association, it is funded under the joint federal-state research funding scheme in accordance with Article 91b of the Basic Law by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts.

The HI’s activities are currently divided across four departments: a) Administration; b) Academic Forum: forum activities / project work / support for early-career researchers / scholarship programme / publishing through its own publishing house; c) Academic Collections: image archive containing all types of visual media – except paintings – relating to the topography and art and cultural history of Eastern Central Europe / map collection comprising map sheets, historical maps and vertical aerial photographs / document collection focusing primarily on the history of the Baltic region, comprising estates, family archives and records of social organisations; d) Research Library: bibliographic portal / newspaper and newspaper clipping collection / music collection / library.

The results of the work are presented in the form of conferences, exhibitions, research resources and the centre’s own research outputs. The area of focus comprises the present-day territories of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as well as the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and occasionally parts of Ukraine, Hungary and Belarus.

The HI publishes the *Journal of East Central European Research* (known as the *Journal of Eastern Research* from its foundation in 1952 until 1994); the HI’s publishing house also produces four series of publications.

As an association, the HI has four governing bodies: the three-member Executive Board comprises the Director as the Executive Board Member in charge of day-to-day management, another senior research fellow as the Director’s deputy, and an external Executive Board member. The ten-member board of trustees oversees the management and exerts a decisive influence on the HI’s academic and personnel development.

The Herder Institute, lecture theatre, publishing house and
administration. [Photo: Herder Institute, W. Schekanski]

The Scientific Advisory Board, comprising six to eight members, advises the Executive Board and the board of trustees on academic matters. The General Assembly, which is responsible for matters relating to the Articles of Association and the discharge of the Executive Board, currently comprises representatives from 18 institutions and professional associations, including the HFR. Since 2007, the Director of the HI has also held the post of Professor at Justus Liebig University Giessen and is appointed through a joint procedure. The post of Director has previously been held by Werner Essen (1950–1951), Erich Keyser (1951–1959), Hellmuth Weiss (1959–1965), Richard Breyer (acting Director 1966–1972), Roderich Schmidt (1972–1990), Hugo Weczerka (1990–1995), Hans-Jürgen Karp (acting director in 1995), Eduard Mühle (1995–2005), Winfried Irgang (acting director 2005–2007) and Peter Haslinger (since April 2007).

Until around the mid-1960s, the HI (in line with the HFR) largely followed the methodology and programme of the ‘Ostforschung’ of the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on border issues, ethnographic research and the German contribution to the history of East-Central Europe, albeit whilst refraining from overtly racist lines of argument.^[3] From 1967 onwards, a protracted debate unfolded regarding the institutional and legal structure of the HI, with options such as its conversion into a foundation or a federal institute being considered.^[4] With the HI’s inclusion in 1977 in the joint federal-state funding scheme (‘Blue List’, known as the ‘Leibniz Association’ since 1997), a certain degree of state influence was enshrined, whilst at the same time the HFR’s continued sponsorship of the HI was secured. In 1994, following an evaluation by the German Council of Science and Humanities, the HI was separated from the HFR’s sponsorship and became a legally independent association. It now saw itself as a service centre for historical research on Eastern Central Europe. Since the mid-2000s, efforts have once again been made to strengthen the research component, insofar as this is permitted by the obligations arising from its role as a scientific infrastructure.

• Hugo Weczerka: The Johann Gottfried Herder Research Council and the Johann Gottfried Herder Institute: The Origins and Development of a Network for Research into Eastern Central Europe. In: Erwin Oberländer (ed.): History of Eastern Europe. On the Development of a Historical Discipline in Germany, Austria and Switzerland 1945–1990. Stuttgart 1992 (Sources and Studies on the History of Eastern Europe 35), pp. 256–275.
• Hans Lemberg: The Herder Institute on the Move. From the Institute of the J. G. Herder Research Council to the Herder Institute e.V. In: Hugo Weczerka (ed.): Aspects of Collaboration in East-Central European Research. Conference of the Herder Institute and the J. G. Herder Research Council on 22–23 February 1994. Marburg 1996 (Conferences on East Central European Research 1), pp. 101–106.
• Dorothee M. Goeze, Peter Wörster (eds.): The Document Collection at the Herder Institute. History and Profile. 4th ed., Marburg/Lahn 2012.

Series and periodicals

• Journal of East Central European Research (until 1994: Journal of Eastern Studies)
• Studies in East Central European Research (until 2011: Studies and Materials on East Central European Research)
• Conferences on East-Central European Studies
• Sources on the History and Regional Studies of East-Central Europe
• Materials on the Art, Culture and History of East-Central Europe

• www.herder-institut.de

Christoph Schutte: Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe – a Leibniz Association Institute. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2012. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32816 (as at 2 June 2015).