Theodor Fontane Archive

We are a literary archiv and an academic institute in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Potsdam. Theodor Fontane (1819-1898), his time, and his contemporaries form the core of our work. Founded in 1935, the archive resides in the Villa Quandt at the foot of the Potsdam Pfingstberg. Our team of literary and cultural scientists, archivists, librarians, and student workers render services in everything Fontane and Fontane research, complete research projects and host cultural events.

Scope of Operations

Literary Archive

Established out of Fontane’s literary estate, the Theodor Fontane Archive has a comprehensive inventory of manuscripts, documents and realia, which has been continuously augmented through acquisitions and expanded through reception certificates. We have a constantly expanding library with almost all literature by and about Fontane.

Collections & Holdings

Research Institute

As a scientific institution, we conduct basic research, compile bibliographies, editions, and research publications, and invite you to join us in to symposia and congresses. In cooperation with universities and research institutions in our region, we conduct research projects, some of which have a special focus on the field of digitization of literary archives and Digital Humanities.

Research

Cultural Institution

As an institution of remembrance and a meeting place for enthusiasts of Theodor Fontane and his time, the archive offers a wide range of cultural education and experiences for Fontane novices and Fontane connoisseurs. For example, we organize guided tours, lectures, workshops for schoolchildren and students, readings, and discussions in the Villa Quandt on Potsdam’s Pfingstberg.

Events

About the Theodor Fontane Archive

Foto eines Innenraums des Fontane-Archivs im alten Archivgebäude, 1980er Jahre

History

Since its founding in 1935, the Theodor Fontane Archive has had a chequered history in the Third Reich, in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany. Here, we introduce you to a few stations of this German-German history.

History

Team

The Theodor Fontane team is composed of experienced Fontane experts and engaged up-and-coming scientists. You can get to know the faces of the archive here.

Team

Services

The Theodor Fontane Archive offers numerous services: from support for research and publication projects to working in our reading room and the granting of image rights.

Services

Digital Services

Bibliography

In 2006, the Fontane Bibliography compiled by Wolfgang Rasch was published in 3 volumes. The updated and expanded bibliography has been available as an online database since 2019.

Fontane Bibliography

Manuscripts

The Theodor Fontane Archive has digitized all of its manuscripts. In the Digital Collection of Manuscripts, we are successively putting these holdings online.

Digital Collection of Manuscripts

Correspondence Database

Fontane’s letters are regarded as important testimonies and as valuable works in their own right. The Fontane Correspondence Database digitally continues decades of cataloguing work.

Correspondence Database

The »Fontane Blätter« Journal

More than 50 volumes of the journal Fontane Blätter, which has been published by the archive since 1965, have been digitized in cooperation with the Potsdam University Library, and new issues are being added continuously.

Fontane Blätter

Chronicle

The Fontane Chronicle by Roland Berbig, published in 2010, contains information on over 20,000 days in Fontane’s life. Since 2021, the Fontane Archive has continued the chronicle digitally.

Chronicle

Fontane’s Library

A research project with the UCLab of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences developed a prototype of an interactive visualization of Theodor Fontane’s reference library.

Interactive visualization of the reference library

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