EUSTORY | The History Network for Young Europeans

29-30 April 2009, "La Case Encendida" in Madrid

To show best practice in non-formal education – this is the aim of the regular educational forum “Educatión al margen” organized by the social and cultural centre “La Casa Encendida” in Madrid. From 29-30 April, “La Case Encendida” held a special edition of its forum on EUSTORY. Competition organizers, experts and  jury members from Poland, Russia and Spain as well as the EUSTORY Managing Director were invited to present the methods, aims and achievements of EUSTORY both on the national and international level.

During the first day of the forum, both Poland as the oldest and Spain as one of the youngest EUSTORY member competitions were at the core of the presentations. The audience consisting mainly of educators and experts from the educational field had the chance to watch two best-practice examples (documentaries) from the Polish history competition "Historia Bliska" organized by the Foundation KARTA Centre in Warsaw since 1996/1997. Both films illustrated clearly the impact the competition and its methods have on Polish youth and their accompanying teachers. They also highlighted how much the competition in Poland contributed to an open and critical approach towards history especially in historically disputed areas. During the following panel discussion, the representatives of KARTA (Alicja Wancerz-Gluza and Jerzy Kochanowski) discussed with their colleagues from the Spanish EUSTORY competition (Ignacio Herrera de la Muela and Francisco Ramón Ruiz Caňestro) how the approach to research history "from below" can be fruitful both for local and regional communities as well as for the dialogue between the young and the old.

The second day of the forum was focused on the experiences of Russia with its biggest EUSTORY competition organized by the MEMORIAL Society in Moscow and on the European dimension of EUSTORY. Irina Scherbakowa (MEMORIAL) underlined the importance of the competition for Russia, as it is a very rare chance to preserve the testimonies and narratives in the families and in the regions. She also stressed the role of the teachers who contribute to the success of the competition in their role as tutors. Gabriele Woidelko (EUSTORY) presented the opportunities of award winners, alumni and competition organizers in the framework of the EUSTORY association. She underlined how important it is for winners of national competitions to confront their own perspective on history with the perspective of prize winners from other European countries.

On both days of the forum, the audience was actively involved in the discussion. As all participants came from a clear educational background, the questions were mainly directed to the practical implementation of the competition in Spain and to its possible contribution to a bottom-up debate about history in Spain.