Scientific estate of Detlef Gojowy
A profile of the collection of Eastern European music, which includes the estate of Detlef Gojowy, can be found on the website of the Custody of the University of Oldenburg.
Scientific estate of Detlef Gojowy
Networker of Eastern music. University receives Detlev Gojowy's estate / Archiving begins
Understanding Eastern European music from the inside and making it known in Germany - that was the goal of the renowned musicologist and radio journalist Detlev Gojowy (1934-2008), who bequeathed his estate to the university. A conversation with Prof Dr Melanie Unseld about the importance of the estate and the first steps in deciphering it.
UNI-INFO: Ms Unseld, how did you manage to bring Gojowy's estate to the University of Oldenburg?
UNSELD: Through the close contact that Prof Violeta Dinescu had maintained with Gojowy since 1982. After all, there is also an archive of Eastern European music here at the university, founded by Prof Dinescu, with which this estate is closely connected. Karl-Ernst Went from the university library was also very committed to the estate, and we are glad that we can now start archiving it after long negotiations.
UNI-INFO: What new insights do you hope to gain from the estate?
UNSELD: Gojowy was very intensively involved with new music from the regions of Eastern Europe, even when the Iron Curtain made contacts and mutual awareness almost impossible. He was closely networked with almost all the musical greats of the so-called Eastern Bloc countries. Whether Edison Denisov, Myriam Marbe, Krystzof Meyer, Milko Kelemen or Elena Firssowa - he knew them all personally. The estate can therefore be expected to provide fundamental impulses for the understanding of Eastern European music.
UNI-INFO: What exactly does the estate contain?
UNSELD: Incredibly exciting documents, strongly characterised by a dedicated academic as well as personal interest in the composers. In addition to the core, the personal correspondence, the estate also contains manuscripts and other documents of Gojowy's works, monographs, recordings and journals.
UNI-INFO: What will happen to the material now?
UNSELD: First of all, the estate will be digitised. Then we will document it and decipher what is actually there - which we are obliged to do by donation within four years. After this documentation work, we will be able to ask specific questions about the estate and finally analyse it scientifically.
UNI-INFO: One of your core areas is gender-sensitive estate research. Do Gojowy's materials open up new perspectives here?
UNSELD: I can certainly imagine that. It would be good if a doctoral candidate with specific knowledge of new music in Eastern Europe and the specific cultural and political circumstances could be commissioned to analyse the material. After all, very specific problems arise when researching estates - a document often poses more questions than it answers.
The questions were asked by Matthias Echterhagen