When we talk about intangible heritage, we are not talking about enshrining a practice, festival or traditional craft, not about protecting it in a glass house – quite the opposite! It is important to recognize that intangible cultural heritage, like any heritage, is preserved for the future and future generations. For this, the people involved must constantly deal with their environment and society in order to further develop their cultural heritage with creativity and to be able to pass on knowledge and skills about living cultural practices and forms to the generations that follow them. In this way, intangible cultural heritage connects the past, present and future.
The people who are committed to a cultural tradition and therefore preserve its intangible cultural heritage have always intervened in different ways to adapt it to new social, political, economic, religious or cultural circumstances. Without change, there can be no continuity, be it in practices and festivals, in craftsmanship, performing arts or knowledge of nature. Culture heirs shape cultural expressions with their actions, their ideas, their needs and possibilities, and they shape them as a matter of course. The courage to change is necessary to preserve the intangible cultural heritage.
The "Augsburger Friedensfest" was in the service of confessional confrontation and demarcation for many years. Today’s interconfessional and interreligious holiday provides an impulsive framework in which ideas on social cohesion and peacekeeping are debated. The groups and civil society institutions involved contribute in terms of content, art and community.
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The heritage of the conflict festival has therefore become a festival of dialogue that picks up on the present day’s challenges. Every year, discussions on new socio-politically relevant topics demonstrate the willingness to change and the spirit of innovation. A new festival element since 2015 is the "Round Table of Religions", which responds to the diverse urban community of today.
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In many places, extensive festivities have developed over time around the celebrations of the consecration of churches (Kirchweih, Kärwa). In 1954, a harvest thanksgiving procession was added to the Fürther Michaeliskirchweih, which has been celebrated since the 16th century. The procession is now one of the key elements of the festivities. Festival communities respond to new ideas and needs with such kinds of extensions. Not every change has lasted though; for example, the relocation of the church festival to a fairground in 1901 was reversed in 1902.
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The "Hutzeln", pears dried whole, are a speciality in the Steigerwald. The vitamin-rich and storable dried fruit was an export hit from the rural region for centuries, especially for international shipping. Due to modern preservation techniques, changing taste preferences and new cultivation methods, many of the production sites and their associated fruit trees disappeared.
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With today’s awareness of healthy, regional and sustainable nutrition, the Hutzel pear has gained new significance in recent years, which has also brought about a refocus on the drying process: in the past, drying was done with the aim of preserving the pears for a long time. With the "new" pears, the main thing is to preserve the flavour during the drying process. The attractiveness and popularity of the Hutzeln pears may in turn be the impetus for a revival of agroforestry, which is characteristic of the cultural landscape of Steigerwald.
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For centuries, flat glass could only be produced in a laborious mouth-blowing process; today, this is usually done industrially. The traditional craftsmanship is still only used in a few locations in Europe, including the Upper Palatinate. Glass panels are created in the process that are each unique. Nowadays, this kind of glass is needed less for church windows and sacred art, but is used worldwide in contemporary architecture and art objects.
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Wickerwork is a traditional craft technique with a wide range of applications. The economic importance of wickerwork declined in Bavaria due to new materials and industrial alternatives as well as imports of wickerwork. The knowledge and skills of this cultural heritage are nevertheless in demand in "classic" areas of application, for example in furniture crafts or restoration work.
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The craft of wickerwork is taught and learned at the vocational college in Lichtenfels, and creatively developed by artists and in arts and crafts. They open up new areas of application for an old craftsmanship technique using innovative materials and modern forms. They present their products and partly artistic objects at markets and exhibitions.
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Shepherding in Bavaria has massively lost its importance because the options to graze free areas with flocks of sheep are increasingly limited and because the production of meat and wool has competition on global markets. But sheep farming is being looked at from new ecological perspectives today: sheep make an essential contribution to the preservation of the cultural landscapes of rough pastures or juniper heaths that have developed over centuries, as well as to dike maintenance. The regions maintained by sheep farming are characterised by a high level of biodiversity.
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A new awareness of the value of regional products or mini agricultural cycles in urban areas, for example, grazing on roofs, are opening up new economic opportunities for shepherding and promoting an appreciation for the cultural heritage of "shepherding". The global dimension of the human-sheep relationship and its valuation was recently revealed by Brexit, which increased the demand for sheep products from Bavaria.
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Numerous legal practices and forest uses have developed in the Steigerwald from historical forms of the commons, the communal use of forest and agricultural resources. Rights and duties changed less than the procedures used to manage and maintain the forest. Today, for example, chainsaws are used instead of traditional equipment, or the rules for timber allocation have been adapted. The key idea is still the concept of sustainability, which aims for long-term inheriting and bequeathing and the people’s connection to their forest.
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To the exhibition unit: InheritingCulture – learning skills transmitting
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