Start of New Competition in 2014/2015
Several EUSTORY countries announced their new topics and started their next competition round within the last few weeks. The topics are as varied as they can be and as they were in history. However, 2015 is right in the middle of the commemorative years of World War I (2014-2018), and therefore some countries are concentrating on World War I and its many different aspects: “Everyday Life during World War I” (Belgium), “Europe on the Battlefields - The Legacy of World War I for Us Today” (France) and “Remembering World War I” (Slovenia).
With the competition “The Contemporary Wars - from the Fall of the Berlin Wall until Today”, Italy concentrates not only on national aspects but on international ones as well.
Israel decided to encourage students to work on “Attitudes toward the Other as Reflected in History” and to focus on the topic of “Children's Lives during World War II” as well as to refer to the children as "the Other".
The 8th Czech competition round engages in “The Story of a Photograph - Memory and History in Front and Behind the Lens” and thus focusses on the exploration of photography as a distinctive historical source as well as a medium for channeling history of a family. The main interest of the young researchers might go to the photographer or to the persons depicted instead. However, a photograph is in its own way a type of external or artificial memory. A memory we can use with hindsight to bring back events which are more or less distant. A photograph is often an invitation to discover a new topic and to ask relatives about the person or event that is depicted. The adventure of uncovering the fate and origins of a photograph begins. A static image gains its original dynamics and the story comes to life gain.
Germany concentrates on “Being different. Outsiders in history”. There is no specification of what is meant by “Outsiders”. An outsider could have been a witch during the middle age, a punk in the early 80s or someone who got out of line with what society calls “normal”.
The Latvia competition is dedicated to “The Story of the Artifact”, the Danish topic is called “Fight for everything you hold dear” while Switzerland chose a national topic with: “Typically Swiss?”
The stage is set for the new competition rounds in 2015 - so let the work begin!
Find all current topics here.