Authors

Discussion

Three years after the first discussions about this potential donation began, and after much financial, strategic and logistical planning, the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe in Marburg, Germany, was honoured to receive the exceptional diaspora collection created by the Latvian scholar Jānis Krēsliņš Senior during his seven decades in exile in the United States in 2025. This presentation will first provide an overview of this remarkable collection, which contains books, journals, maps, archival materials, graphic materials, and paintings. Secondly, it will discuss the deliberations of the collector’s heirs before donating the collection to the Marburg Institute, as well as the reasons behind the Institute's acceptance of this generous yet challenging donation. It will also outline the Herder Institute’s plans to use this and other Baltic/East Central European diaspora collections to establish a diaspora research centre, involving a network of institutions in East Central Europe, Western Europe, and North America that are actively engaged in collecting and curating diaspora materials of East Central European origin. These plans include a digital humanities approach to curating and interlinking such materials, as well as supporting research on the East Central European diaspora and collections created by individuals or institutions in exile. The Institute hopes to fulfil the wishes of Jānis Krēsliņš Senior and his heirs, while creating new possibilities for transnational diaspora research.