Poland

Foundation for European Studies (FEPS)

SINCE WHEN? 2008

WHY? FEPS was founded in order to enhance and facilitate high quality interdisciplinary research in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, to promote new methodological approaches and to link academics, ambitious students and practitioners. This way, FEPS also contributes to the adult education development - by promoting best practices and connecting ambitious learners and researchers.

FOR WHOM? students, academics, adults and youngster of Lower Silesia region.

WHAT? We have an experience in organizing international educational activities such as workshops, training courses and conferences. In those projects major role always plays the European context, because of the priorities of the foundation. The projects organized by FEPS (training, conferences), were addressed not only to European citizens, but also adult learners from other European countries (Belarus), the United States of America, or Africa.
Examples:
Thin Thank Generator - During the project there were workshops with representatives of renowned Think Tanks and under supervision students had to work on texts. In the next step, the finished texts were discussed with recognized experts cooperating with research centers. So far we had Polish-German, Belarus and South African edition.
Support of non-formal education in Belarus - The project consisted of two seminars on non-formal education. The first one took place in the the training center of "Education Without Borders" in Dunaevo, Belarus. The second seminar was held in Wroclaw. Then the trainees had to prepare local projects using learned methods.
Monitoring the consequences of Poland's participation in the international intervention in Afganistan - The aim of the project was to reveal the shortcomings of information to the public from the media regarding the social impact of Polish intervention in Afghanistan.

BY WHOM? The team consist of 5 projects managers, a director, executive board, (2 people) and the foundation council (3 people).

WHY “WORDS CONNECTING GENERATIONS”?
Although our organization is relatively young, we are a team of experienced educators and project managers, in the field of political and European science, history, cultural studies and media. The primary objective of FEPS is to promote and support the active civic participation of young people and adults. As a organization, we don't have experience of working with oral history yet. But as a individuals we have worked with this method, during several non-formal educational projects, as well as in our research work. We recognize the need to promote oral history in our local environment, also due to the very interesting history of the place. Therefore we want to learn the best practices from the partners and share our ideas for new projects.

Country: Poland
Region: Lower Silesia
City: Wrocław
Website: www.wroclaw.pl
Number Inhabitants: aprox. 640,000

Short historical background:
Wrocław is the historical capital of the Silesia. The city originated as a Bohemian stronghold at the intersection of two trade routes, the Via Regia and the Amber Road. The name of the city was first recorded in the 10th century as Vratislavia. Its initial extent was limited to Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island, German: Dominsel). Later this settlement was absorbed into Czech territory from where the name Wroclaw is thought to have been derived - after a Czech leader by the name of Wrocislaw. It wasn't until around 990AD that Prince Mieszko I, of the Piast dynasty and founder of the Polish state, seized control of Wroclaw and incorporated the region of Silesia into Poland. By 1000 Wroclaw must have already been a town of some prominence as King Boleslaw the Brave established one of three bishoprics here. Wroclaw continued to grow in the next two centuries mainly due to its thriving trade economy and craftsmanship; however in 1241, along with most of southern Poland, the city fell foul of the marauding Tartar army and was razed to the ground. The town leaders used this misfortune as an opportunity to rebuild the city around a massive Market Square on the south side of the river - the same Market Square that you can still see today. In 1336, the last of the Piast Princes died and the duchy of Silesia was annexed to Bohemia. The winds of change picked up again in the 16th century when King Ludwig died in battle, leaving no heirs, and the Bohemian estate elected Duke Ferdinand, of the Austrian line of Habsburgs, as King. Now Wroclaw was under Austrian rule. The next chapter in the city's history began in 1741 when King Frederick the Great II seized Lower Silesia and brought it under Prussian rule. Wroclaw by the end of the 19th century was the third largest Prussian city behind Berlin and Hamburg, and began to be heavily industrialised.
After the World War II, as a result of the Potsdam conference, Wroclaw was joined to Poland as the whole country was effectively shifted westwards. The remainder of the German residents were expelled and the city was re-populated by Poles from Lwow (now the Ukranian town of Lviv), Wilno (now the Lithuanian town of Vilnius) as well as many arrivals from different parts of Poland. The new settlers inherited a foreign city that was 70% destroyed.
Wrocław is now a unique European city of mixed heritage, with architecture influenced b y Bohemian, Austrian and Prussian traditions, such as Silesian Gothic and its Baroque style of court builders of Habsburg Austria. Wrocław has a number of notable buildings by German mmodernist architects including the famous Cenntenial Hall (Hala Stulecia or Jahrhunderthalle) (1911–1913) designed by Max Berg.

Strenghts, potential and opportunities:

largest city in the western Poland and capital of Lower Silesia region
the third largest educational centres in Poland with 130, 000 students
attractive market for foreign investors in high-tech sector (LG Electornics)
good connection with Kraków, Dresden, Berlin, Prague
Wrocław was a host of UEFA Euro 2012 and has been selected as a European Capital of Culture in 2016

Challanges / difficulties :

difficulties in building the identity of the city. It's been only from two decades the process goes on, while during the communist era was not fully possible. Additional obstacles was the fact, that the post-war city residents don not feel rooted in this place. The challenges is to exploit the potencial of the young people who identify themselves with the city, establishing it's identity. The challenge is also to translate this potential to increase civic attitudes.

Anything else that is special:
almost complete replacement (97 %) of the city's population after World War II

Potential of working with the oral history topic:

the Centre of Memory and Future in Wrocław, which is dealing with the collection and archiving of interviews with residents of Wroclaw and Lower Silesia
numbers of local NGO's, which already had an experience with oral history topic (Unesco Initiative Centre)
local schools – high schools and Univeristies (mainly University of Wroclaw)