Provincial treatment and care asylums for the mentally ill in East Prussia as forgotten cultural heritage: case study of the asylum in Allenberg (now Znamensk, Russian Federation)

The article focuses on issues demonstrating the role of architecture in the development of Prussian psychiatry in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. The Provincial Treatment and Care Institution Allenberg (now Znamensk, Russian Federation) is used as a case study to demonstrate the perception of model solutions used in Prussian asylums located in distant provinces. The asylum discussed in this article met the contemporary requirements, proving that these models and newest trends reached East Prussia very quickly. The asylum complex in Allenberg was a testimony to the development of Prussian and European architectural thought in the service of medicine. Unfortunately, today the former asylum remains in a poor condition and is treated as unwanted legacy rather than a cultural monument.

Hygric Properties of Machine-Made, Historic Clay Bricks from North-Eastern Poland (Former East Prussia): Characterization and Specification for Replacement Materials

This paper deals with the hygric characterization of early 20th century machine-made clay bricks, representative of great number of historical buildings in north-eastern Poland. Heritage buildings have a high potential for adaptive reuse, which is strictly connected with an urge for knowledge about the properties of these existing building envelopes. To better understand the hygric behavior of historic buildings, various experimental laboratory tests, including density, water absorption, compressive strength and freeze-thaw resistance, were conducted. In order to assess the microstructural characteristics of the tested bricks, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) tests were performed. These tests were conducted on clay bricks from historic buildings, as well as on those that are currently being produced, in order to identify the relationship between the materials used in the past and the replacements produced presently. This paper addresses the lack of systematic application of existing standards for evaluating the state of the conservation of historic bricks and for establishing the specifications for replacement bricks. The results of conducted study and further research will be the basis for creating a historic materials database. It would be a useful tool for selecting bricks that correspond with the historically used materials and help to maintain homogenous structure of the restored buildings.

Lithuanian Catechism for Rural Schools (1795). Circumstances of its Compilation

Researchers constantly add new items to the bibliography of Lithuanian publications published in East Prussia in the last decade of the 18th century. The initiatives of publishing in local languages of that period were driven by the reforms of the Church and schools carried out by the Prussian authorities while the Enlightenment was coming to an end and the ideo­logy of regional particularism was continuously growing in the country. As can be seen from newly discovered archival documents and already recorded bibliographic information, at least four publications dedicated for primary Christian education were published in Prussia in 1795, namely, the New Testament, the psalm book, the semi-secular reading textbook The Friend of Children (Kūdikių prietelius), and the catechism for rural schools. The editions of the New Testament and Kūdikių prietelius are recorded in the Lithuanian bibliography, however, nothing has been known about the mentioned editions of the psalm book and the catechism so far. The circumstances of their publishing are analysed in the article.

Educational contexts of migration. The case of East Prussia / Warmia and Mazury in 1945

Millions of people were forced to emigrate when World War II came to an end in 1945. Migration processes were particularly pronounced in East Prussia, the German territory that was partitioned between Poland and the USSR after the war. Germans fled from East Prussia, and their farms were settled by newcomers from central Poland and the Eastern Borderlands that had been ceded to the Soviet Union. This article discusses the narrative surrounding the wave of post-war migration in Polish and German academia, museums and informal education. An analysis of textbooks and academic scripts revealed that this topic has received broad coverage in the German educational system. Museum exhibitions focusing on emigration from East Prussia and the Eastern Borderlands were also examined, and the results of the analysis indicate that German museums displayed a greater interest in the topic.In the last step, websites dedicated to migration issues were compared as a form of informal education. The comparison revealed a similar number of websites as well as similar levels of activity in Polish and German websites.