Introduction

Dear partners, friends and colleagues!

This issue of the newsletter features the results of Summer Academy – 2009 on “History and Identity”. This topic is wide-ranging and multifaceted and can be discussed and comprehended from a variety of perspectives. To ensure that people join a common dialog about history, a spectrum of approaches and methods can be used – from purely academic, for example, social or anthropological studies, to popular and accessible events focusing on people’s personal stories. During the Academy, participants could familiarize themselves with many of them in the course of an interesting educational program presented by adult education experts and scientists.

Summer Academy 2009 was based on the regional approach involving collaborative rethinking of individual and common past. Its participants were representatives of eleven countries, and each of them had his or her own views on this topic and experience. As a result, there appeared an unforgettable and exciting dialog making it possible to see what we had in common and identify ways to overcome disintegration. In this regard, one can hardly overestimate the value of regional cooperation based on exchange of ideas and joint project activities. This is a real way to form the common, stable and happy future by uniting people striving to build positive and good neighborly relations. The participants’ presentations on their experiences in the topic “History and Identity aroused animated and even heated discussions aimed to find areas of common interest, similar views and methodology.

For example, as a preliminary result of regional cooperation one can consider the project that originated in the course of training – “Lake People” uniting several countries at once – Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Russia. Naturally, success of this project depends on each country’s willingness to contribute to its implementation.

The oral history method provoked a lot of reflection, debates and questions. Presentation of Leyla Neyzi, Professor of Sabancı University, showed this method as a history rethinking tool that works with active and direct participation of people – eye-witnesses. Olga Agapova’s program focused on methodological techniques of work with eye-witnesses of outstanding events such as autobiographical approach to work with adults and signs of the time. Vanya Ivanova introduced examples of practical application of oral history into the Summer Academy program.

Presentations of already implemented oral history-based social projects, having stirred up a lot of exciting feelings in us, confirmed the importance of this method in the present-day reality.

We hope that all the ideas generated during our professional and social communication at regional level will be put into practice!

Elena Sabirova,

Deputy Head of Representative Office

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