The Heritage of the Borderlands – Silesia

On August 25, we shall commence another, fifth seminar in the series The Heritage of theBorderlands. It was organised by the ICC for a group of Japanese scholars of the history and culture of Central Europe. This year, it will bring together 19 Japanese researchers, focusing on the heritage of Silesia, as well as the border regions of Poland, Czech Republic, and Germany. The project supports the promotion of Polish culture in Japan.

Permanent collaboration between the International Cultural Centre and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies has continued for 8 years. Our series of travelling seminars is the first European programme of this type dedicated to the development of knowledge of cultural heritage and the history of the region of Central Europe. For researchers from a different cultural context, it is a particularly important experience to practically investigate problems related with borderlands, as well as visit places and people linked with them. The programme has a positive impact on participants’ academic work, as well as has inspired translations of Polish literature into Japanese. A list of outcomes of previous editions of the project includes, among others, the first translation of Adam Mickiewicz’s Ballads and Romances into Japanese.

Each of our ten-day programmes, organised around the issue of borderlands, is dedicated to a different region and different country. They are addressed to researchers from Japan, whose work focuses on this part of the continent. In previous years, seminars were dedicated to Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Slovakia, and Hungary.  

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Additional information:

dr Michał Wiśniewski, Head of Education Department and Academy of Heritage, phone: 883 304 755; m.wisniewski@mck.krakow.pl