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Understanding a common history of diversity
What seems a rather diverse region today was even more diverse and multicultural in the past. For centuries, what makes up CENTROPE today was a patchwork of ethnic, social and religious communities. In our time, for young people to grasp the peculiarity of this shared heritage can mean to discover what they have in common.
In October, a five-day study and learning excursion took students and teachers from the Centre for the Study of Modern History and Multicultural Societies at Masaryk University Brno across CENTROPE. Participants were given an opportunity to encounter multiculturalism, the main theme of the project and excursion, in the form of traditional multicultural neighbourhoods or their vestiges in those areas that underwent ethnic homogenisation. Thanks to this project supported by the European Structural Funds and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, the students witnessed the cultural vicinity of the CENTROPE member areas and at the same time the multicultural richness of its territories.
The excursion programme concentrated on visits of historic monuments and institutions, lectures, debates with citizens, discussions and various encounters. Opportunities for comparing the nature of CENTROPE’s multicultural heritage were manifold, thanks to a long history of mutual coexistence, but also as a result of conflicts within the cross-border region. Past and present ethnic minorities in the region, such as the Jewish community in Mikulov or the Croatian minority in Burgenland, and information about their lives fostered the students’ understanding of how the region was forged by ethnic diversity.
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