The Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK) has one of the largest collections of ethnographic artefacts from south-eastern Europe in the German-speaking world. The core of these holdings can be traced back to the travels of the journalist Gustav-Adolf Küppers. Between 1935 and 1939, he acquisitioned some 3,400 objects for the museum and also carried out extensive photographic documentation of the objects. Despite some losses during the Second World War, this collection remains a unique testimony to the material culture of the Balkan Peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The collection assembled by Küppers mainly consists of objects from the world of work and daily life, but also includes more festive objects such as jewellery, textiles and carnival masks. He also collected various processional icons, a large number of shaped breads (Gebildebrot) and other cultic objects. Significantly, he also acquired the entire material contents of workshop in various places, most of which document working environments that have long since ceased to exist.
Icon, shrine, Madonna with Child, today’s Republic of Moldova (late 19th/early 20th century) © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen
The MEK began a comprehensive analysis of the objects and photographs in October 2023. The two-year research project will record the objects in detail and trace the contexts of their acquisition through initial case studies and in-depth cataloguing of individual collection journeys.
In addition, the collection will be situated within in its temporal and disciplinary contexts: What kind of image of the region and its inhabitants is being constructed through these objects? What role did contemporary folklore and ethnological discourses play?
Members of the Karakachani community (1939), eastern Bulgaria © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen
On the last of his five collecting trips, Küppers visited members of the Karakachani community in the Kotel region of eastern Bulgaria (1939).
Even before the First World War, the collector Küppers was a member of the Wandervogel youth movement and came under the influence of nationalist and anti-Semitic theorists at an early stage. To what extent did such biographical aspects influence his collecting activities? Can the objects and photographs even be read as an example of völkisch (ethno-nationalist) science? After working for the museum, Küppers also held a comparatively high position in the Wehrmacht’s Balkan department from 1939 onwards and was able to draw directly on the knowledge he had acquired in the course of his museum work. Do the objects even indirectly reference imperialist politics, war and occupation in the context of National Socialism?
Article by Küppers (1928) glorifying the “Artamans”, detail, Archiv der deutschen Jugendbewegung © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Europäischer Kulturen
The “Artamans” were a radical ethnic settler community that also included several later NSDAP party leaders.
These and other questions are addressed by this project. In addition to the precise analysis, contextualisation and photographic documentation of the objects, this work has involved accessing and analysing files in government, scientific and museum archives. It is also important to take a look at Küppers’s extensive journalistic output. In addition, this research into the collection represents a first step towards further collaborative research with colleagues from south-eastern Europe.