Masuria in focus: Lenz's local history museum and the search for identity

Masuria in focus: Lenz's local history museum and the search for identity

When it comes to stories of home and loss, then the novel “Heimatmuseum” by Siegfried Lenz is not far away. On June 18, 2025, Rudolf Guckelsberger, a speaker and presenter at SWR, will read from this important work on three evenings at the HdH BW. The local history museum, which is set against the backdrop of political upheavals in Masuria, takes a look at the personal fates of the people who live there. Stuttgart.de reports that ...

The novel, first published in 1978, not only recapitulates the memories of the narrator Zygmunt Rogalla, a carpet weaver, but also addresses the complicated history and political tensions in Masuria. The region, which is often in conflict between Poland and Germany, becomes a microcosm of the European border landscapes. [Wikipedia explains that...)

A personal look at history

Zygmunt Rogalla spends his youth in the fictional city of Lucknow and experiences an idyll there that is abruptly destroyed by the First World War and the ensuing political conflicts. Memories of his childhood are overshadowed by strokes of fate, such as the death of his father and his expulsion by his grandfather. After the war, Rogalla was drafted into military service and found himself in Schleswig-Holstein, where he finally started a new life with his family. Wikipedia states that...)

The theme of home is explored in many different ways in the novel. In the course of his life story, Rogalla also deprives the world of his personal connection to his homeland when, fueled by political upheaval, he takes his own local museum with him on the run and later even sets it on fire in order to come to terms with his own past. On his sick bed, Zygmunt processes his actions and reflects on what his homeland meant to him. [Stuttgart.de highlights that...](https://www.stuttgart.de/ Veranstaltungskalender/veranstaltungen/rudolf-guckelsberger-liest-siegfried-lenz-heimatmuseum-503107.php)

A story with deep roots

The interweaving of personal and political history is not only exciting, but also shows the challenge that Lenz' protagonists have to overcome in the face of dramatic events. The conflict between individual memories and collective interpretations of history is at the center of the novel. Rogalla, it is said, ultimately takes responsibility for the local history museum and is called upon to redesign it in a ethnic way in order to meet the demands of the political times. Wikipedia highlights that...)

These stories from Masuria are also echoed in other literary works. This is how Tobias Lehmkuhl describes the beauties and challenges of the region that was once part of East Prussia in “Land ohne Haste”. Other authors such as Artur Becker also take up the topic by examining Masuria as a historical and cultural landscape that was both a dream and a nightmare for its inhabitants. [Perlen Taucher reports that...](https://www.perlen Taucher.de/stichwort/masuren/buecher.html)

Whatever your opinion, Rudolf Guckelsberger's readings promise to delve deeply into the complex world of Siegfried Lenz and to bring listeners closer to the feeling of home, which is both familiar to many of us and lost to many, in a lively context.