Library scholarship: Apply now!

Libraries not only preserve literature – libraries can also inspire literature. The research fellowship is aimed at authors of all literary genres who would like to explore the holdings of the Gotha Research Library during the research phase of their literary projects. The scholarship is endowed with 1500 euros and allows for a one-month stay in Gotha. Travel costs and accommodation in the guest house of the Gotha Research Centre are included. Scholarship holders with children receive a one-time family allowance of 100 euros. A public reading is also planned as part of the stay.

The Gotha Research Library at Friedenstein Castle is one of the most important historical libraries in the German-speaking area. It is part of the collections of the ducal house of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, which existed from 1640 to 1825, and the holdings of the ducal house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which were collected in Gotha between 1826 and 1945. Together with the museum collections, the secret archive, the ducal museum and the former ducal apartments as well as the park landscape, it forms a unique collection, building and garden ensemble of European rank.

The Gotha Research Library preserves more than 700,000 printed works, including around 350,000 prints from the 16th to the 19th century. In addition, there are around 11,500 manuscripts. The core of its holdings, which were universal until around 1850, is the outstanding collection of manuscripts, autographs and bequests on the cultural history of Protestantism in the early modern period. The collection of about 3,500 oriental manuscripts is one of the largest of its kind in Germany. The Perthes Collection preserved in Gotha includes unique source material on the development of cartography and geography in the 19th and 20th centuries. The library also preserves an important collection of letters from German emigrants to America from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The rich holdings of travel literature, the estate of the science fiction author Kurd Laßwitz or the area of the Illuminati Order, which has been intensively researched in Gotha, are also suitable for literary discoveries. In addition to current literature from the Gotha Research Library, users can access more than one million monographs and journals as well as databases and electronic media from the Erfurt University Library.

To apply
The scholarship is subject to an application procedure. A board of trustees will deliberate on the grant applications for the year 2025 in March 2025. The application should name the holdings of the research library relevant to the literary work. If you have any questions about the library's holdings, please contact PD Dr Monika Müller, phone (+49) 361–737 55 61, monika.mueller@uni-erfurt.de. For further information on the application procedure and the necessary documents, please see the website of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Thuringia (English translation is selectable).