The international participants of the Baltic Sea History Project came for one week to the academy to test the online learning material developed in the frames of the Baltic Sea History Project.

Part of their programme was a visit to the neighbouring city Flensburg.
After a walk through the city centre and a visit of the famous Idstedt-Lion, the group met with ECMI representative Dr. Bober to learn more about the ECMI`s activities in the field of minority issues.

The listeners were quite surprised when Dr. Sergiusz Bober, after giving a brief introduction to the history, structure and mission of the centre, held up two newspapers: Flensburger Tageblatt, the “majority” newspaper of the region and the Danish minority newspaper, Flensborg Avis. He compared the two newspapers with each other and highlighted their different role and content.

This stands in connection to Dr. Bober`s working paper on the Danish minority Newspaper Flensborg Avis, which was recently published at the ECMI. The conclusion of his study bears the title “NATIONAL MINORITIES VIS-À-VIS POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THEIR KIN STATES. THE CASE OF FLENSBORG AVIS NEWSPAPER”. It showed that Flensborg Avis is an example of a minority media actively engaged in debates concerning issues important for Denmark and presents views “not infrequently on a collision course with narratives dominating there”.

Following the presentation, the audience wanted to know more about the target regions of the ECMI, the practical implementation of its policy recommendations and the norm settings for the daily work of the ECMI. After a fruitful discussion, the researcher Aleksander Cywiński remarked, “he was really surprised to find a unique centre as the ECMI in such a small city”.

About the Baltic Sea History Project

The Baltic Sea History Project intends to raise the awareness that there is not only one perspective on historical events, but multiple perspectives, which have to be exchanged on a basis of mutual understanding and respect to overcome nationally confined perceptions of the history of the Baltic Sea region.
A learning concept for adults will be developed from 2017 to 2019. Part of it is a guideline “Writing history multiperspectively”, an online tutorial, an online platform and learning material. The Project is a so called “ERASMUS+ project”, supported by the European Union.

Source: ECMI InfoChannel @ European Centre for Minority Issues.