Kulturportal Bayern presents intangible cultural assets – Munich
The double is part of it, lace-making in the Upper Palatinate Forest, the Christmas shooters in Berchtesgadener Land, the Agnes Bernauer Festival in Straubing, the Tölzer Leonhardifahrt or the Wunsiedler Brunnenfest. The list of the intangible cultural heritage of Bavaria, which has recently been shown in a virtual exhibition on the culture portal “bavarikon”, is impressive. The digital show is presented at www.bavarikon.de/kulturerbe Photos, videos and sound recordings on 34 forms of cultural expression, all of which are registered in the Bavarian State Directory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
In addition to oral traditions, customs and festivals, this also includes performing arts, traditional handicraft techniques and traditional knowledge about nature. In contrast to the material cultural heritage with monuments and works of art, the immaterial is not tangible, but only visible at the moment of action, and therefore more difficult to present. The collection, laid out as a display depot with all “exhibits”, presents the broad spectrum of forms of expression. Of course, there are also nationally known events such as the Oberammergau Passion Play or the More Drachenstich, but also nature knowledge, as it is passed on in the high alpine alpine economy in the Allgäu. The focus is on the people who have acquired the knowledge and skills of previous generations and developed them further.
But not only the intangible cultural assets are worth visiting the Internet portal on art, culture and regional studies of Bavaria, online since 2013. In the meantime, around 370,000 pieces of content from more than 110 fastest cultural institutions have been put online. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek takes care of the organization, editing and technology, while the platform Selbst is a joint project of the Ministry of Art and the Ministry of Digital Science.
In 1984 the “Byzantine bone plate with Heracles” was found during excavations in the cloister area of the Benedictine convent on Fraueninsel in Chiemsee.
(Photo: Archaeological State Collection Munich)
From the homepage of the portal you almost automatically tap on the “Glanzlichter” button, land on a photo page and click on the adorable “Byzantine bone plate with Heracles” while scrolling down. In 1984 it was found during excavations in the cloister area of the Benedictine convent on the Fraueninsel in the Chiemsee. Or maybe you are interested in the boots of the “Moor corpse von Peiting”, the only known moor corpse from Bavaria, found in Hohenpeißenberg. Or rather turn to the pierced magic dolls from the 2nd or 3rd century, which testify to ancient magic and voodoo-like rituals.
Incidentally, the intangible “cultural heritage” is only one of the focal points offered by the portal. It is also possible to take a detailed look at Regensburg and its Jewish community in the Middle Ages and discover that the people of Regensburg not only worked in the past, but also enjoyed themselves in playhouses and women’s homes. However, a council regulation from 1397 regulates gambling strongly. No citizen of the city, whether Christian or Jew, was allowed to gamble or to organize games at home in which money, food or other goods could be won or lost. There were a few exceptions to these regulations: hitting balls on the field, board games such as chess or card games were allowed up to a stake of one pfennig and a profit of twelve pfennigs per day. By the way, for one Regensburg pfennig you got two mugs of Bavarian wine, 2.5 mugs of beer, a pound of lard or a pound of mutton.
You can also find the Nobel Prize certificate, which Paul Heyse was awarded in 1910 as the first German poet
But you can also dive into the beginnings of paper money, study the constitution of the Kingdom of Bavaria, get closer to Luther and the early Reformation in Bavaria, or look at early sources and representations of the Munich Oktoberfest. The range of content is enormous and certainly not only interesting for historians. Lovers of literature will also find what they are looking for, they can stroll through the exhibition on Bavarian women writers and the bourgeois women’s movement around 1900.
It began in 1886 when two young women from Dresden came to the Bavarian capital: Anita Augspurg (1857-1943) and Sophia Goudstikker (1865-1924). The two founded the Elvira photo studio (1887), which then became the nucleus of the women’s movement. Despite its many prominent members, the Munich poet’s association “Die Krokodile” (1857 – 1883), whose name is derived from Hermann Lingg’s joke poem “The Crocodile in Singapore”, is almost forgotten. Incidentally, the ideal member was a poet who was not only a poet but also pursued an academic profession. Lorenz von Westenrieder (1748-1829).
It is of course possible to search for individual people, places or objects. Even after idiosyncratic rarities such as the Nobel Prize certificate, which Paul Heyse, also a member of the crocodiles, was the first German poet to receive in 1910. The award certificate from his estate consists of a fold-out folder bound in blue leather with a colored Art Nouveau garland.
Encounter with an unfortunate outcome: Arthur Synnberg photographed King Ludwig II of Bavaria and the actor Josef Kainz.
(Photo: Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, Gardens and Lakes)
Anyone interested in the early days can be fascinated by the “Red Walls”, a limestone statuette, made around 25,000 BC, about the same age as the world-famous “Venus von Willendorf” from Lower Austria. The red, an androgynous hybrid, was discovered in 1948 in the vineyard caves near Wauern in the Wellheim dry valley.
And don’t worry: the cultural portal has of course not forgotten one of Bavaria’s most important attractions. The life and the myth of the “fairy tale king” Ludwig II are followed extensively. His fellow men did not have it easy with him, not even the Austrian actor Josef Kainz (1858 – 1910). Ludwig committed him in the summer of 1881 to a trip to the original Swiss locations of Schiller’s drama “Wilhelm Tell”. Kainz was supposed to recite passages from Schiller’s work on the Tellsplatte or in the Rütlihaus in the canton of Uri. But the king’s expectations overwhelmed the young actor, exhausted from the long hikes. And so the journey ends with a break between patron and favorite.
Further information on the culture portal at www.bavarikon.de