Study trips 2021

BORDERLANDS 2021 STUDY TRIPS

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BORDERLANDS Peripheries have much to teach the centre

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his year’s three Study Trip destinations are all united by a “borderland” theme. Observing and analysing the particularities of “borderlands” will help us to understand many important processes of cooperation between people and groups in the context of globalization and Europeanization. Moreover, this exploration will assist us in perceiving two key threads: the weight of the past that remains in local communities, and the free choices of the past that have been guided by positive values essential for peaceful coexistence and innovation. The first is a tendency toward self-destruction, wherein borderland communities can be manipulated to tear apart their collective tissue.

The second is a creative inspiration, displaying the ways in which the distinct characteristics of borderlands lead to the formation of communities.

The phenomenon of borderlands is universal and they can be found across the globe, in places such as former Yugoslavia, Uruguay, North/South Tirol, Sudan, Alsace-Lorraine, the Kurdistan region and Transnistria. The past, present and future of these areas has taken on international significance, and hard-fought battles – both diplomatic and military – will continue to be waged over them precisely because of their “borderland” nature. Right here in the middle of Europe, we have the extraordinary opportunity to investigate four different manifestations of this phenomenon and will do so as part of the Study Trips.

4 BORDERLANDS “Peripheries have much to teach the centre” Borders inherently create divisions, regardless of whether they are lines on a map or imagined partitions between social groups. But only rarely are borders representative of a clear break from one category to the next. This fluid melding between sectors offers the opportunity to puncture premises that undergird worldviews formed at the centre. When nationalism, for example, is seen from the centre, it appears to be a foregone conclusion, an obvious expression of the majority culture. At the margins, however, a completely different set of conditions make nationalism appear contingent, contested and less essential. Thus borderlands represent more than the meeting or overlapping of various boundaries, either political, ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious; they are valuable as models for our multi-layered world.

Borderland populations have been shaped not only by their inherent diversity, but also by their role as a subject and object of various social and political forces. The people of the borderlands have always needed to find ways to live together, and this has been misunderstood from centres of political power.

At base, borderlands epitomize the liminal characteristics of the human social experience.

Revisiting borderlands, both physical and ideological, will allow us to work against oversimplification, dualism and essentialism across frontiers of time and space.

The study trips will use the east-central European space as a proving ground for testing our assumptions in ways that resonate beyond this part of the world.

Each of the destinations invite lively debate over the meaning of basic concepts such as territory, ethnicity, language, climate, environment, trade and sovereignty.

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GALICIA A laboratory of myths The program of this study trip will invite students to explore several cities of the former Galician territory and to reflect on the contemporary dimension of the Galician Myth focusing on the phenomenon of borderlands as Galicia represents a particular space of memory for Poles, Ukrainians, Austrians, and Jews. Students will have the opportunity to learn and compare the divergent perceptions of Galicia – once representing merely a term created to denote the most impoverished province of the Habsburg Monarchy since the late 18th century and then it disappeared in the wake of the First World War in 1918. Yet Galicia lives on as a mythical place going beyond both physical and temporal frontiers.

Galicia is a peculiar place both uniting and divisive, since diverse peoples living together have often led to undesirable outcomes: separation, antagonism, fragmentation of societies, and continuous conflicts.

The nature of communal life can also account for prosperous co-existence by transcending the idea of nationalism and creating a new sense of belonging within a pluralistic community based on multiculturalism, tolerance, and shared values and beliefs.

Galician territory witnessed many difficult times in history: the partitioning of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth among Russia, Prussia and Austria, the interwar period, Polish-Ukrainian violence, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the redrawing of national borders. Yet Galicia brings a variety of perceptions: for some it represents political rivalry, for others – harmonious co-existence; and competition over memory and history continues to play a role in Polish-Ukrainian relations.

8 GALICIA A laboratory of myths Galician myths do not always correspond to reality, home to intricate social and religious communities but each one carries different meanings to the stratified legally and economically. Students on this descendants of the region’s inhabitants.

Study Trip will learn about the complexity of the region, its economy, industry, education, demography, How is Galicia perceived today? Galicia felix or Galicia and the role of aristocracy. miserabilis? In this context, students will be invited to participate in lectures, guided visits and panel One hundred years on, these lands continue to serve as discussions with historians, sociologists, reporters, a laboratory for what Timothy Snyder has called “the and other experts to explore the territory that was once reconstruction of nations” in contemporary Europe.

PLANNED HIGHLIGHTS A panel discussion on Galicia as a shared territory of memories for Poles, Austrians, and Ukrainians Guided tours of several cities of the former Galician region (Kraków, Rzeszów, Przemyśl) Visits to Bóbrka Museum of Oil Industry, Łańcut Castle, Łańcut Sinagogue and others A comparative analysis of the concepts of political borders vs. cultural and religious divisions; mythical images vs. historical facts Guided tours of several cities of the former Galician region (Kraków, Rzeszów, Przemyśl) Discussions on the contemporary relevance of the Galician Myth – identity, cultural heritage, and a new sense of belonging to a multicultural community

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NYSA A new Borderland Between Germany, Czechia and Poland This region connects southwestern Poland, with the area around Liberec in the Czech Republic and eastern Saxony in Germany, located in the Sudetes mountains. For centuries this land has been closely interconnected by common Germanic cultural and linguistic ties. Nysa became a borderland because of what happened after the Second World War as a result of ethnic cleansing and international agreements to deprive Germany some of its eastern territory.

These emptied lands in Czechoslovakia and Poland were repopulated with refugees and deportees from all over the world. In addition to the Poles and Czechs from eastern territories lost in postwar arrangements, there were Ukrainians, Lemkos, Roma, and repatriated migrants from France and Belgium. Even less well known are the groups of war refugees settled in these areas first from Yugoslavia, then Greece, Korea and finally Vietnam in the 1960s. In essence, a multicultural amalgam replaced the rather uniform

German past. Polish propaganda in the communistera focused on a specious argument about ancient Polish ties to the region, calling them the “recovered territories”. For Czechoslovakia there was no dispute over whether the territory belonged in the country, but its population changed dramatically. The past and present of this region brings up a number of fascinating questions about what to do with relics of the previous inhabitants, and how the new populations make this place their own.

12 NYSA A new Borderland Between Germany, Czechia and Poland Finally eastern Saxony, abutting Czechia and Poland, under scrutiny because of the recent the European faced its own borderland crisis of depopulation Court of Justice ruling that ordered mining to following the reunification of Germany in the 1990s. cease immediately. There, in the town of Bogatynia, this Study Trip will have the chance to see how EU As with the others, this Study Trip destination will environmental policy comes into conflict with the cover the history and memory of the region, but will needs of local people who stand to lose their lives and also be focused on the present issues that borderlands livelihoods, reminding us that the green transition face, such as cross-border cooperation, energy and must be a just transition. ecological concerns, and the free movement of labour.

The area is also home to one of the largest coal mines and coal-fired power plants in Poland that has come

PLANNED HIGHLIGHTS Exploring how were new communities established on lands that were ethnically cleansed. How have Czechs and Poles (and other recent settlers) dealt with the complicated status of the area they live in today?

Meeting with various groups responsible for making the EU single market a reality Economic and Cultural Exchange between Czechia, Germany and Poland in this borderland Meeting with Border Guards at their Specialized Training Centre in Lubań Meeting with Polish Energy Group (PGE) and city officials in Bogatynia – home to a large coal fire powerplant and lignite coal mine (Turów).

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COEXISTENCE IN A MULTICULTURAL MOSAIC The Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish borderlands Suwalszczyzna and Podlasie The regions of Suwałki (Suwalszczyzna) and Podlasie are exemplary borderlands, where communities espoused multifaceted national, ethnic, and confessional identities.

For centuries, the Suwałki/Suvalkai region has been inhabited by Jews, Lithuanians, Poles; while the Podlasie territories have been home to Belarusians, Jews, Poles, and a community of Tatars who settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the collapse of the Golden Horde. Despite confessional differences of these groups – Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam – tolerance endured.

Russian Empire, whose suppressive policies towards the population fanned the flames of nascent national movements. The socio-cultural heterogeneity of the region was used for political purposes by the warring Russian and German Empires during the Great War, interwar states contesting control over both territories, and World War II belligerents. Discriminatory politics created tensions and conflicts between local ethnic groups that had a profound, long-lasting impact on After the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian the optics of “us” and “them” between neighbours.

Commonwealth, the territories were annexed by the

16 COEXISTENCE IN A MULTICULTURAL MOSAIC The Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish borderlands Suwalszczyzna and Podlasie Geopolitical considerations continue to affect both regions today as the Polish and Lithuanian borders are also the external borders of the EU and NATO. Squeezed between Russia and Belarus, the 65-km wide Suwałki corridor is the only land connection linking the Baltic states with Poland and the rest of their NATO allies. Lithuania and Poland played an active role in shaping the EU’s response to the Lukashenko repressions against the 2020 nation-wide protests following the rigged presidential elections in Belarus. Lukashenko has responded to EU sanctions by creating a migration crisis at the Lithuanian and Polish borders. The trip will thus investigate the current

political situation in Belarus and its relations with the EU neighbours from a borderland perspective.

Lastly, the picturesque landscapes of Podlasie and Suwalszczyzna had a profound influence on numerous artists, such as Nobel laureate for literature Czesław Miłosz and painter Leon Tarasewicz, who emphasized their borderland identity and used it to create unique art. Moreover, the protection of the natural environment creates transnational obligations for borderland communities, which the trip will also explore.

PLANNED HIGHLIGHTS Guided tour of sites illustrating national, ethnic, and confessional diversity of the destinations Discussions on the current situation in Belarus Meetings with local authorities Meetings on Belarus and migration in Vilnius, Lithuania (depending on the pandemic situation)

Widen your perspective!

BORDERLANDS 2021 STUDY TRIPS