Leipzig Robert Blum Award for Democracy
The City of Leipzig will award the prize every two years from 2024. Endowed with €25,000, it will go to a notable person from the fields of culture, art, science, religion, politics and journalism. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has accepted the patronage.
The purpose of the award is to honour commitment to democracy, freedom of opinion, enlightenment, non-violent change and inner-German, European and global understanding in the spirit of Robert Blum. It will place a particular emphasis on public forms of expression such as visionary speeches and (artistic) performances that expose intolerant power structures and mindsets and defend democratic values and institutions. The award will be effective in raising Leipzig’s visibility as an important centre in the democratic uprisings of 1848/49 and 1989.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Patron
Leipzig has a long tradition of civic courage and commitment. Our memories of past democratic awakenings can embolden us to tackle the significant tasks that lie ahead. The courage to embrace change and a firm belief in the future – these are the things that Robert Blum exemplified for us all.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Theatre impressario, publicist and politician Robert Blum
The Leipzig Robert Blum Award for Democracy is named after the theatre impressario, publicist and member of the first German National Assembly, Robert Blum (1807–1848), who worked as a journalist and politician in Leipzig between 1835 and 1848.
During the 1848/49 revolution, he advocated liberal rights and non-violent change in society, fought for freedom of the press and freedom of speech and sought dialogue with European revolutionary movements. A gifted orator, he favoured dialogue and compromise as the bedrock of democracy.
As editor of the critical journal Sächsische Vaterlands-Blätter, he encouraged public debate and gave the first female political figures such as Louise Otto, later Otto-Peters (1819–1895), a platform to criticise the authorities and call for reforms. In it, she argued in favour of improving education for girls and the right to political co-determination for women.
Blum represented Leipzig at the Frankfurt National Assembly, which opened on 18 May 1848. In October 1848, he travelled to Vienna as head of the delegation of the democratic parliamentary group, where a revolutionary uprising had recently begun. Despite his immunity as a member of parliament, he was arrested there on 4 November after making several speeches and serving in the defence corps against the imperial troops. Sentenced to death on 8 November, he was executed by firing squad the following day. His death invigorated the revolutionary movement in Germany before it was crushed by the military in 1849.
In 2020, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier held a ground-breaking speech emphasising the importance of this epochal figure for democracy and naming a room at the Gallery of Honour in Bellevue Palace after Robert Blum. A portrait of Robert Blum hangs in this gallery on permanent loan from the Leipzig City History Museum.
Even today, Robert Blum's work stands as a symbol for new beginnings in a democratic future – in particular due to the authoritarian and populist threats that existed back then as they do now.