Scholarship for literary research

On the joint initiative of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Thuringia, the Friends of the Gotha Research Library e. V., the Gotha Research Centre and the Literary Society of Thuringia e. V., writers were given the opportunity to research in the Gotha Research Library for the first time in 2021 with a scholarship.

The library scholarship gives authors of all literary genres (novel, poetry, drama, etc.) the opportunity to engage with the research library's holdings during the research phase of their literary projects. These include more than 11,000 emigrant letters, numorous first-person documents, manuscripts, books and historical prints from the private libraries of the Ernestine dukes and duchesses as well as from the ducal court library. Many original sources from the time of Martin Luther and the early phase of Protestantism or documents that shed light on the history of knowledge and collections in the early modern period and the Enlightenment are also available for research.

The one-month scholarship is awarded in cooperation with the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Thuringia, the Friends of the Gotha Research Library, the Gotha Research Centre and the Literary Society of Thuringia.

Among the first scholarship holders were Rainer Merkel (Berlin), Xenia Helms (Berlin), Ralph Grüneberger (Leipzig), Sebastian Stuertz (Hamburg) and Yulia Marfutova (Boston / USA). A reading by the scholarship holders is also planned during the stay.

The application deadline is 28 February 2023. Further information on the scholarship and the application form can be found here: https://www.kulturstiftung-thueringen.de/