Online Exibition Elsa Winokurow
Student. Migrant? Doctor! These were significant stages in the life of Elsa Winokurow (1883-1983), née Rammelmeyer. Her parents had emigrated to the Russian Empire for economic reasons and Elsa thus grew up in Moscow as the daughter of a German family. Her privileged background and her marriage, but above all her strength of will and determination, enabled her to overcome multiple obstacles and fulfil her dream of studying medicine, which she did first in Zurich and later in Berlin and Bonn, before finally practicing as a doctor in Moscow, Hanover and Goslar. In this way, she belonged to the first generation of Russian-German women who successfully studied and worked abroad.
The 17th year group of the Elite Graduate Programme, under the guidance of Dr Kornelia Kończal (LMU) und Dr Arpine Maniero (Collegium Carolinum), spent a year working on Elsa Winokurow’s exciting biography, using materials and documents from Elsa’s life that her nephew Matthias Rammelmeyer had given to the Bavarian State Library in Munich. The result is a digital exhibition that gives an insight into Elsa’s eventful biography through numerous letters, photographs, postcards, newspaper articles and even pieces of music. More than just telling her story, the exhibition also reveals the profound influence of the many societal issues she was facing at the time. Alongside gender norms and the conventions of the bourgeoisie, Elsa was affected not only by the October Revolution but also by the harassment of ethnic minorities and political dissidents in the Tsarist empire.
The project culminated in a bilingual webinar on 4th November 2021, during which the website was launched, and two students presented the highlights of the exhibition. Thanks to the simultaneous interpretation into Russian and the Russian version of the website, it was possible not only to take Elsa Winokurow’s life story into account but also to invite a wider audience to explore the history of migration between Germany and Russia. You can visit the website here.
