Georgia

The history competition

In 2017/18, Georgia held a history competition for school children titled “My Ancestors at My Age”. The competition aimed at raising pupils' interest in history as a subject and at increasing their motivation to study it. History is not just facts and dates, and it is not a thing of the past - it has a big influence on everyday life. Creating history is something everyone can do around them. It was important to bring to light the "hidden" history, to tell stories that are not apparent at first glance and might slip through the fingers.

Learning through research activities was a core component of the competition.

The competition was open for four months, from December 15, 2017 to April 15, 2018. Fifty-six school children from all over the Georgia took part in the competition and submitted 47 entries. Works covered a wide variety of topics: human history, family history, the Second World War and its remembrance, local history and clash of generations, repressions in Soviet Georgia. After long time ordinary people started to appear in the history.

Requirements

The announcement called on 15- to18-year-olds to enter the competition aimed at rediscovering history and the past. Their stories were to be based on easily available materials. For their research they could use both official written documents and materials held in family archives. They could also use oral histories.

This competition was an attempt to make history cross over from the official, national narrative to descriptions of everyday life. This way, school children themselves became researchers who had to find material and work with it. According to the rules of the competition, each entry had to be created under a teacher's guidance.

The language of the competition was Georgian, but those who wished could submit entries in Armenian, Russian or Azerbaijanian. Thus, the organisers of the competition were trying to encourage members of ethnic minorities to participate more actively without a language barrier.

Jury

7 jury members - historians, journalists, teachers, professors of contemporary history - received all 47 applications. They assessed each work from 0 to 10 points. The first three winners received the highest points. The six best essays were published in a brochure.

Awards

The award ceremony was held at the Writers House building in Tbilisi. The three winners received computers and all participants received certificates.