Nora Ebneth's lecture: “Chopin in the Third Reich – Idealized, Appropriated, Banned”

The ICC and the Consulate General of Germany in Krakow invite you to a lecture by a scholarship holder of the 31st edition of the Thesaurus Poloniae program. It will be devoted to the Third Reich's attempts to Germanize the music and figure of Frederic Chopin.

May 14, 2025, 6 pm

Place: Consulate General of Germany in Krakow, 7 Stolarska St.

During a lecture at the German Consulate General, Nora Ebneth from the Hamburg School of Music and Theater will talk about how the Nazi dictatorship tried to appropriate and Germanize the music and image of Frederic Chopin. He will show how the figure of the composer was used for propaganda purposes, especially in occupied Poland. In doing so, she will focus on the figure of Hans Frank and his role in manipulating Chopin's oeuvre for political purposes. She will also talk about how the famous composer's music became a source of cultural resistance and national identification for Poles during the occupation. In doing so, she will introduce a project carried out as part of the ICC's Thesaurus Poloniae scholarship program.  

The lecture will be given in German. Simultaneous translation from German to Polish.

Free entry. Registration is required at: ku-100@krak.diplo.de [NO SEATS].

Guests will be admitted from 5.30 p.m.

The room can accommodate a maximum of 45 people.

Nora Ebneth is a doctoral student at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama and a recipient of the Thesaurus Poloniae – Junior Scholarship (March-July, 1st intake 2025). She also studied musicology at Christian Albrecht University in Kiel. She is vice president of the Chopin Society in Hamburg (Chopin Gesellschaft Hamburg & Sachsenwald), with which she co-organizes the Chopin Festival. She is involved in numerous cultural projects, including those of an interdisciplinary nature.

Thesaurus Poloniae is a scholarship program designed for foreign scholars conducting research on the culture, history and multicultural heritage of the Republic of Poland and Central Europe.

More about the Thesaurus Poloniae program