Perthes in Conversation: "A Stieler for Socialism? The Haack Great World Atlas Project"

The history of the Justus Perthes Gotha publishing house, founded in 1785, was characterised by various upheavals and the tensions between the political systems in the 20th century. After the division of Germany, the publishing house was "re-established" as a "state-owned enterprise" in 1953; nevertheless, a long cartographic tradition was inscribed in the publishing house. Although it resumed cartographic production at the beginning of the 1950s, it was not until the early 1960s that it attempted to launch an atlas whose cartography would serve as the basis for all cartographic production. As a result, in the years between 1964 and 1968, the publishing house developed an atlas project that claimed nothing less than to set new international standards. In this context, the publisher involved a large number of experts from various fields of knowledge in its project and devised a series of editorial guidelines to create a standardised basis for the production of maps. Against this background, the lecture takes a look behind the atlas project and is dedicated to the genesis of the "Haack Großer Weltatlas" and its maps.

The speaker of the evening is Dominic Keyßner academic coordinator of the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies/Perthes Collection at the University of Erfurt. He is currently working on his doctorate in the EPPP graduate centre "History of Knowledge in the Modern Era" at the University of Erfurt and is focusing on the most important large-scale project of the “VEB Hermann Haack Geographisch-kartographische Anstalt Gotha”.

Following the lecture, the Friends of the Gotha Research Library Association invite you to a small reception.