How to teach Ukrainian history in Germany, Poland and other European Union countries?

We invite you to participate in the workshop organized by our partners: Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig and Center of Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences Berlin.

International workshop in Munich: „How to teach Ukrainian history in Germany, Poland and other European Union countries? New transnational perspectives on history teaching at school”

Date and venue: 17-18.11.2023, Free Ukrainian University in Munich.

Organizers: Ukrainian Free University in Munich (UFU), Center of Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences Berlin (CBH PAN), Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig (GEI), and Viadrina Centre of Polish and Ukrainian Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder.

The event is supported by the Foundation of the Polish-German Cooperation.

Russia’s current full-scale war against Ukraine forced the mass emigration of Ukrainian schoolchildren among others to Poland and Germany, which also brings challenges for school history education. It raises the questions how to teach Ukrainian history in European Union countries. In 2022, the Center of Historical Research Berlin, together with a group of Ukrainian and German historians, political scientists and Germanists connected with the NGO “Freundschaft kennt keine Grenzen”, based, among other things, on the experience from work on the Polish-German textbook series „Europe. Our History.” The primary goal of the workshop is to discuss the supplementary materials we are preparing for teaching Ukrainian history in the broader context of German, Polish and European history.

The war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the EU also prompt us to consider the chances of creating a project aimed at developing more extensive materials for teaching Ukrainian history and their use in school practice in both Ukraine and EU countries. To the two-day workshop are invited history teachers from Ukraine, Germany and Poland, senior students of pedagogy, history teachers and scholars who remain involved in various transnational history teaching materials projects.

The event will be held in Ukrainian, Polish and German, and simultaneously translated. The part with presentations and the panel discussion will be also available online via ZOOM. The work in groups on the topic: “How to teach in Germany and Poland about the Holodomor?” will take place on site and only its results will be presented online via ZOOM.

Goals and impact:

• Final product of the work in groups will be producing auxiliary materials for teaching the history of the Holodomor in high schools in Germany and Poland; introductory materials in Ukrainian, German, and Polish, based on the translations from contemporary Ukrainian textbooks, will be a basis for the work in groups. The materials will be sent to all participants ca. 7 days before the workshop.
• Discussion of the participants on problems and challenges related to teaching Ukrainian history in Germany and Poland.
• Discussion how to continue the workshop series: „How to teach Ukrainian history in Germany, Poland and other European Union countries?” in the next year.