Poland

The history competition

The Batory Foundation and the KARTA Center Foundation decided to initiate an educational program entitled "History at Hand" ("Historia Bliska"), whose main element was to be an historical competition for young people. The idea for an historical competition for young people followed the restoration of freedom and independence in 1989. It was stimulated by the notion that while history was pressed into the service of political demagoguery of all persuasions, there was an evident lack of interest within society at large for the truth about the not-so-distant past. The propagation of historical knowledge, especially among young people - the voters of tomorrow - was a much needed social task. The problem was how to encourage these young people to learn about their history, to awaken their critical faculties, and help them to recognise the historical contexts in which they live in terms of social change, tradition, and culture.

Requirements

The competition addresses secondary school pupils (in the 15-19 age range). This was dictated by the structure of the Polish education system because primary school children (7-14) would require a completely different assessment set up. In addition, there was the danger that we would be inundated with a volume of entries that would exceed our organisational resources.

Formalia

The submission form is up to the author: e.g. a set of documents regarding a given person with comments by the author, interview with a witness (or witnesses) recorded and written down, a set of photographs with a description by the author, an amateur video film, a CD-presentation, an exhibition, a 'radio' broadcast or various mixed forms. Research works should be original, i.e. they may not reproduce or compile material from existing studies. There is not page or size limit. Works may be prepared by a single student or by a group of students, either under the guidance of a school teacher, or another adult or without any help.

Jury

There is an auxiliary jury (KARTA staff), a nomination jury (eight professional historians) and the final jury (four outstanding personalities in the field of history). KARTA is sufficiently strong and prestigious to hold a nation-wide competition, but lacks the financial and human resources to organise local judges' panels. However, to achieve a fair assessment of the entries without making undue demands on the time constraints of the distinguished historians who served on the assessment panel, KARTA decided to organise a three-tier assessment system, sorting the entries according to strictly defined criteria tabulated in standardised assessment forms (exact subject, historical process, geographical region, utilisation of sources, form, methods and presence of a commentary).

Awards

Every year the Stefan Batory Foundation assigns the total amount of 66,000 PLN (€ 16,680) for the awards. It depends on the jury how many and what kind of prizes will be given out. The jury grants individual and group awards - three monetary prizes and additional awards such as record players, cameras, books, etc. The first prize for an individual might be 2,000 PLN, or 6,000 PLN or a computer for a team. The additional award might be 600 PLN or a camera for an individual, or 200 PLN or a record player for each member of a group. There are special (monetary) prizes for tutors as well. The awards ceremony takes place in the biggest and most beautiful hall of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. All awarded students and their tutors are invited to the ceremony. The awards are handed out by the members of the jury.