The first issue of the newly designed Journal for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern
Europe (JKGE) addresses the specific conditions of education practices and education processes
in the era of Enlightenment in Eastern Europe and its pluricultural and multilingual regions.
Research on the Enlightenment period and on 'entangled history' has recently gained a more
global focus and this has foregrounded questions of transfer translation networking
interferences asynchronicity and ambivalence. Were educational practices guided by rationality
or by a spirit of colonialism or somewhere along the spectrum between these? To what extent
did the structures of authority exercise an influence on educational initiatives and practices
especially those in popular education? How did the multiconfessional context of Eastern Europe
affect the transition from religious education to strongly rational ways of organizing
knowledge and education? Researchers from Germany Estonia Austria Poland the Czech Republic
and Hungary focus on aspects of education practices in politics science education church
life and culture.
