Marienburg Castle has perhaps the longest history of reconstruction on the European continent. It began in 1817 in a romantic guise, was then scientifically directed by Conrad Steinbrecht and Bernhardt Schmid, and resumed in 1961 after the castle complex was largely destroyed in World War II. It ended in 2018 with the reconstruction of the castle church with the external statue of Mary. While the Prussian reconstruction has been discussed in a large number of scientific texts, the post-war reconstruction has only recently become the subject of research and scientific reflection. The focus is on the question of the extent to which solutions from the pre-war reconstruction were simply repeated and the extent to which they were deviated from, for example, to remove the neo-Gothic decoration and highlight the original elements from the Teutonic Order period. Was there a conscious or unconscious “Polonization” of Malbork Castle, e.g., by emphasizing its 300-year affiliation with the Polish-Lithuanian respublika? And finally: How did a building that embodied anti-Polish Wilhelmine or National Socialist nationalism like no other become one of Poland's most important tourist attractions?
The question of strict reconstruction based on architectural findings is also relevant to the residence of the Grand Dukes in Vilnius, known as the Lower Castle. It was demolished between 1799 and 1803 and is known only from a few surviving images. The residence was rebuilt between 2002 and 2009. The models for the reconstruction are, in addition to the drawings by Franciszek Smuglewicz, analogous Renaissance and Baroque buildings in Poland and Lithuania – the castles at Wawel and Niepołomice, the Vilnius Alumnat, and the Radziwiłł Palace. The question that arises – also in comparison with Marienburg – is whether this so-called museum of the palace of the Grand Dukes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania has undergone a redefinition of its semantic meaning and has become a prime example of a national Lithuanian understanding of history that differs in some respects from the ethos of the multinational Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Prof. Dr. Tomasz Torbus is an expert in art history, specializing in medieval architecture, Jagiellonian residences, and public architecture of Baroque Mannerism. He studied in Warsaw and continued his education in Germany, where he earned his doctorate and habilitation. He is the author of numerous popular and scientific publications. In his 2019 work “Reconstructions, Deconstructions, (Over)Interpretations,” he deals with, among other things, the Marienburg and the Lower Castle in Vilnius. He has been an associate professor since 2010 and was director of the art history institute at the University of Gdańsk from 2012 to 2016.
Klaus Zernack Colloquium 2025
From Ruins - (Re)construction of historical mortgages
This year, the Klaus Zernack Colloquium of the Center for Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences is being held as a joint event with the German-Polish House.
