Art & Culture

Art and culture are more than just entertainment - they are an expression of our history, our values and our inner standards. In this new category of MSchall Verlag, we dedicate ourselves to those personalities, works and developments that shape and enrich our social life. Whether drama, music, literature or contemporary debates: We look at these topics with the necessary respect for their tradition and with a keen eye for what they still have to say to us today. Every analysis follows the guiding principle that real culture does not have to be loud, but deep. This is a place where art once again becomes what it always was - a mirror of the times and an anchor for the individual.

More than punk: Nina Hagen, Cosma Shiva and the art of not letting yourself be taken in

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Portrait of Nina and Cosma Shiva Hagen

When you approach a portrait of Nina Hagen, it's tempting to talk about music first. About punk, provocation, shrill performances. About everything that is loud and visible. This portrait deliberately begins differently. Not with songs, not with styles, not with images. But with something quieter - and more important: attitude.

Attitude is not a label. It cannot be put on like a costume, pasted on afterwards or explained with marketing. Attitude is evident in early behavior, long before someone becomes famous. It can be seen in how someone reacts to limitations, to contradictions, to power. And this is where Nina Hagen becomes interesting - not as an icon, but as a personality.

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Understanding Iran: Everyday life, protests and interests beyond the headlines

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Understanding Iran

Hardly any other country conjures up such fixed images as Iran. Even before a single detail is mentioned, the associations are already there: mullahs, oppression, protests, religious fanaticism, a state in permanent conflict with its own population. These images are so familiar that they are hardly questioned. They seem self-evident, almost like common knowledge.

And therein lies the problem. Because this „knowledge“ rarely comes from personal experience. It comes from headlines, from commentaries, from stories that have been repeated for years. Iran is one of those countries about which many people have very clear opinions - even though they have never been there, don't speak the language, don't know everyday life. The picture is complete, cohesive, seemingly free of contradictions. And that is precisely why it is so convincing. But what happens when a picture becomes too smooth?

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Dieter Hallervorden - More than Didi: Portrait of an uncomfortable free spirit

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Dieter Hallervorden and the Wühlmäuse in Berlin

There are figures that stick to you for the rest of your life. Some like an ill-fitting suit, others like an old friend who keeps popping in without being asked. In Dieter Hallervorden's case, this friend is called „Didi“. And he doesn't ring, he bangs. On an imaginary gong. Palim, Palim! - and almost everyone knows who is meant.

But this is where the misunderstanding begins. Because anyone who reduces Dieter Hallervorden to this one moment, to the slapstick act, the stumbling face and the exaggerated naivety, misses the real person behind it. The joker was always just the surface. Underneath was a mind that was more alert than many gave him credit for - and a character who never liked to be told where to go. This portrait is therefore not a nostalgic look back at the television entertainment of past decades. It is an attempt to take seriously an artist who deliberately did not want to be taken seriously for decades - which is precisely why he was so effective.

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Greenland, Trump and the question of belonging: history, law and reality

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Greenland in the crosshairs: USA and Trump

There are topics that you don't actively engage with, but that simply force themselves on you at some point. For many people - including me - Greenland has long belonged in this category. A large, remote island in the far north, a small population, lots of ice, lots of nature. Not a classic everyday topic, not a political hot topic. That has changed noticeably in recent months.

The increasing number of reports, comments and headlines about Greenland - and especially Donald Trump's repeated statements - have suddenly put the island at the center of an international debate. When a former and possibly future US president speaks publicly about wanting to „buy“, „take over“ or take control of an area, this inevitably attracts attention. Not because such statements should immediately be taken seriously - but because they raise questions that should not be ignored.

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Propaganda: history, methods, modern forms and how to recognize them

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What is propaganda?

For many - and I felt the same way myself for a long time - propaganda was something you learned about in history lessons. A topic that seemed to be firmly established: in the Third Reich, perhaps even in the GDR, i.e. in clearly defined, authoritarian systems. We were taught that propaganda existed there because these systems needed it - and that it didn't really play a role in an open, democratic society like the Federal Republic of Germany.

This view was comfortable. And it was plausible for a long time. Because propaganda was almost always shown as something obvious: as a slogan, as a poster, as martial imagery. Something that you recognize as soon as you see it - and from which you can distance yourself internally. Today, this certainty seems fragile. Not because people have suddenly changed, but because the form of influence has changed. And that is precisely why it is worth clarifying calmly and without agitation what propaganda actually is - and what it is not.

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Vicco von Bülow alias Loriot - order, form and the quiet resistance of humor

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There are artists who put their opinions on paper like a stamp: visible, unmistakable, sometimes even a little cheap. And then there is Vicco von Bülow - Loriot - who embodies the opposite: Poise without bluster. He could be very clear when he wanted to be. But he didn't do it with a pointing finger, but with a precision that first leads to laughter and then - almost imperceptibly - delivers the seriousness. This is particularly evident in later interviews: he does not speak in slogans, but in nuances. There is often more plain language between the lines than can be found in many a loud speech.

And perhaps this is where the real portrait begins: not with the famous sketches, not with the quotes that everyone knows, but with the question of how a person becomes so that they can look at the world with both kindness and relentless precision.

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The Crimean Tatars - history, origins and present of a forgotten people

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Crimean-Tartar steppe

Crimea has been in the headlines again and again for years. In this context, the name of the Crimean Tatars is often mentioned - usually briefly, often without explanation. However, if you want to understand who the Crimean Tatars are, you have to go much further back than the political conflicts of the present.

It is not about a single event or a clear „hour of birth“, but about a long historical process. This chapter attempts to explain this in detail: where this people comes from, how it was formed and why its identity cannot be pinned down to national borders.

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Ulrike Guérot: A European between idea, university and public discourse

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Ulrike Guérot and Europe

There are people whose thoughts you like to follow not because you agree with them on everything, but because they make an effort to penetrate things. For me, Ulrike Guérot is one of these voices. I have been watching her lectures for several years now - not regularly, not ritualized, but when I come across a topic that I feel is worth listening to more closely. What strikes me is that her arguments are calm, structured and largely non-ideological.

This does not make her lectures spectacular in the media sense, but they are sustainable. You can listen to her for a long time without getting the feeling that she is trying to sell a ready-made world view. Especially at a time when political debates are often morally charged or emotionally truncated, this way of speaking seems almost old-fashioned. In the best sense of the word.

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