The project is dedicated to upper-secondary school students in Poland who have outstanding abilities in history and the humanities and have also taken part in subject competitions and interest clubs. Four secondary-school students from Bolesławiec were invited to participate in the project. They met the formal requirements and were among 20 students with outstanding achievements in history.
From 24 to 30 July, workshops on historical aptitude and modern information technologies were held at Dom Polonii in Pułtusk. During the workshops, the young participants had the opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with the modern tools and methods used by historians and to gain the knowledge necessary for further work on creating multimedia publications. During their week-long stay in Pułtusk, the students attended theoretical classes in which, under the supervision of expert Sebastian Zielonka, a specialist from the SWP Institute, they learned in detail about the most important elements of a historian’s work, including working with sources, documentation and archiving. During practical classes, under the supervision of an IT expert, the young participants learned how to use a webinar platform prepared specially for them. They also became familiar with modern techniques in programming, digital processing and digitising the collected materials.
During the workshops, the students visited Pułtusk, with particular emphasis on the town’s rich history. They took a trip to the Museum, where the participants learned in detail about the work of a museum professional. At a specially organised meeting with the mayor, Róża Krasucka, the young historians learned about local community initiatives and activities aimed at promoting the historical heritage of the immediate area.
There was also a trip to Warsaw, whose main element was a meeting with Mariusz Olczak, head of the Central Archives of Modern Records. Thanks to the institution’s courtesy, the project participants gained an inside look not only at archival activities, including the paper deacidification process, but also at valuable memorabilia and documents held in the Archives’ collections.
The next stage will be a series of webinars on the history of Poland and Lithuania, preparing participants for the project’s main activity: a study camp in Vilnius, which will take place in September this year. During the camp, under the watchful eye of trainers and lecturers and in contact with experts, cultural representatives and young people living in Lithuania, the participants will document the lives of Poles living in the Vilnius Region. The students will work with historical sources held in Vilnius museums and archives and in the city’s cultural institutions. The final result of the young historians’ work and efforts will be a multimedia publication, which will be published on the websites of the Stowarzyszenie „Wspólnota Polska” and the University of Wrocław.
Agata Żukowska