Coastal Castle Landscape. Transfer project for the cultural valorization of high and late medieval castles in Schleswig-Holstein

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Oliver Auge
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 465412380

A Burgenland Schleswig-Holstein is hardly considered to be a thing among the public. Yet even today ramparts, place names or castles in prominent locations still bear witness to the existence of former castles. The Department of Regional History at Kiel University took this desideratum as an incentive for conducting a first-time investigation into these castles in the context of the DFG-funded project entitled Kleinburgen als Phaenomen sozialen und herrschaftsraeumlichen Wandels. Die Beispiele Schleswig und Holstein (13. bis 16. Jh.) between 2015 and 2019. The project not only placed regional castle research on a new scientific foundation, but also aroused public and professional interest in this castle landscape. With the transfer project Burgenland Waterkant, the applicant, together with the non-university project partners from the Archaeological State Office of Schleswig-Holstein and the Museum Turmhuegelburg Luetjenburg Foundation, seeks to transfer the recent findings on the origins and development of high and late medieval castles in Schleswig-Holstein and their significance for issues such as reign, nobility, church, rural society, transport, economy, etc. to the public. The central aim of the project, which is scheduled to run for three years, is the conceptualisation, realization and evaluation of a concept for cultural integration of castles in Schleswig-Holstein, which aims at presenting the current state of research on castles in Schleswig-Holstein in a comprehensible manner and thus expand the already existing structures of the Museum Turmhuegelburg Luetjenburg. The concept envisages a symbiosis of a classical-linear approach to communication via a permanent information platform with decentralized participatory approaches, which will not only reach out to new audiences, but will also allow for a more comphrehensive cultural and touristic integration of the ramparts in the area. At the museum site itself, visitors can via multimedial panels obtain information about individual castles, but also on numerous specific issues of the past research project as well as on the methods used. Furthermore, the information platform encourages its visitors for actively engaging with the physical remains in the landscape. These experiences will provide the core of an active participation by the visitors, which will be facilitated by a newly designed web application. This involvement is supposed to establish a new space for discourse on the social and cultural value of these cultural monuments. With its innovative approach and the synergy of private commitment, public administration and academic research, the transfer project thus represents a new approach, the result of which will meaningfully and sustainably expand the already existing range of educational sites on the history of the region by the hitherto neglected topic of castles.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants (Transfer Project)
• Application Partner: Archäologisches Landesamt Schleswig-Holstein; Stiftung Museum Turmhügelburg Lütjenburg