The idea of the ‘December stories’ project came out of curiosity: how do other people celebrate their cultural events in December? What makes the Russian Christmas special and what do they do on the 24^th? Do the Turkish celebrate anything during the ‘holiday season’? What do the Dutch do? And do they do the same in Belgium? What about Finland, the land where Santa Claus is supposed to live?

The easiest way to know this would probably be to just ask our fellow AEGEE members. After all, who would know better than people who experience all these traditions first-hand? AEGEE is spread far from East to West, from North to South and covers so many cultures, that might or might not have a connection with the Christian holidays that are abundant in December.

So throughout December, the Culture Working Group (CWG) would like to share some of your personal stories with the Network. It’s one thing to read about a holiday on Wikipedia and another one is to get to experience it. But because not all of us can travel, having our members explaining, in their own words, what holidays they have is and how they perceive it would help all of us to understand them better.

Ultimately the goal is to get ready for your holidays, make the spirits lighter and get excited for everyone’s own family celebration and for that of our friends from all over Europe. Some CWG members have already answered our request for stories, but we believe that more stories are more fun! So please no matter where you are from, share your story with us.

Write to cwg@aegee.org before the 10th of December & tell your story!

Don’t forget to add your name, Antenna and tell us all about the name of the celebration, what makes it special and your own personal story. Your stories will be featured throughout December on the CWG-website and Facebook page. And an overview of the best stories will be published right here in The AEGEEan.

Help us make this December truly cultural!

Written by Sabina Guja, AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca & PR for CWG

It all started from an on-line debate, and now it is about to become an AEGEE-Europe project. Last December, the Culture Working Group (CWG) set up a Skype debate about History textbooks and how they are influenced by nationalisms in Europe. EurStory is a newborn in AEGEE, but it’s ready to rock the Network and to make ‘History’!

We cannot deny that nationalism in textbooks leads to lots of contradictions on the ways the subject is taught in many countries. Kristóf Papp, president of AEGEE-Budapest, saw a brilliant opportunity in the past debate held by the Culture Working Group about Textbooks & Nationalism and decided to take the lead on making a project about European History textbooks come true. This is how EurStory was born.

EurStory team members Luca Gallyas and Kristóf Papp (AEGEE-Budapest) in the Agora Fair in Rhein-Neckar

“I felt this project was perfectly describing me”. Kristóf grew up in a small city close to the Croatian border, which has a great Ottoman influence. Besides, during several AEGEE events, “I met the different aspects of the interpretation of History in the Central-European region”. All these facts, combined with his passion for History, pushed him to take up the challenge of leading such an ambitious project.

But what is exactly EurStory about? “We want to show Europe that there is a History we are all part of, and that we all have different points of view”, Kristóf explains. There is still a big amount of sensitive topics in European history. EurStory aims to observe and gather the different points of view on relevant historical facts from high school textbooks, and to highlight both their similarities and differences.

The Project Team of EurStory gathered for the first time last May in Brussels, and agreed in their objectives and outline for the project. According to Kristóf, “in order to present all the information, we want to publish comparisons and debates, interesting facts reachable for students as an additional source, and a website with a timeline”. The second part of the project aims to lobby for changes in school textbooks, and to “free them of nationalistic approach”.

The project is still in the planning and recruitment part, but there are some other challenging goals ahead: “we are planning to have a Training Course where we can teach people how to represent the different aspects of History”, Kristóf says. And then comes the cherry to the cake: the Project Team of EurStory plans to visit high schools and give workshops all over Europe, in a similar way like the YOUrope needs YOU! project did in its time.

Positive feedback from the Network and externals

EurStory’s logo, by Benjamin Doll (AEGEE-Mainz-Wiesbaden)

Even though EurStory has just started walking, it has already found a strong support throughout the Network. So far, it has supporters and team members from almost every region in Europe, thanks to its presence in several European events such as the Spring Agora Rhein-Neckar or some Summer Universities. Kristóf admits that the whole project has been changing since the beginning, because of the feedbacks received: “I think I can say that people is excited about the project and everybody has been trying to help us with their opinions and comments”.

Marta Astorgano, member of AEGEE-Barcelona and History student, led a workshop in the TSU between AEGEE-Barcelona and AEGEE-Las Palmas. Looking back at the workshop, she is happy with the outcomes it gave: “we had a couple of members who were really touched by our goals, got in touch with us and asked to be a part of the project”. However, she admits that it’s hard to make most of the members keep its interest in History. “I understand that it’s a heavy subject and it needs concentration, so in a workshop at a Summer University is normal that people lose their attention quite easily”, she says.

Furthermore, EurStory counts with a strong supporter who might be quite well-known for many AEGEEans. It’s Dr. James Skelly, who has taken part in some panel discussions in AEGEE’s Statutory Events. Kristóf Papp approached him in the EBM Valletta, and was offered lots of materials and support from the beginning: “he [Skelly] said it has a huge potential. Since the EBM I met him several times, and we were discussing about the possible working method. He suggested to make the comparisons between exact events, which became the fundamental base of the project”.

A great idea that expects great outcomes

“We have lots of hours of reading, writing and contrasting ahead us, but I hope the outcome is great, because the idea is”, Marta says. There are many ways you can get more information and get involved in the project: the EurStory project team members plan to give a workshop in Autumn Agora Zaragoza, and you will hopefully see them on stage, too!

You can also reach them through:

– Facebook group

– Contact mail

Let’s all make history in AEGEE!

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

Pictures by Dasha Onokhova, AEGEE-Moskva

In this term, the Culture Working Group (CWG) started a new initiative that will make our streets and societies more cultural by very easy actions that can be carried out by individuals or by locals. In other words, the aim is to have Culture Everywhere, which is also the name of the action.

Each month CWG members decide upon a cultural topic, and gather online to brainstorm about possible activities. Later on all these ideas are shared with the AEGEE boards in order to encourage them to improve the cultural situation in the places they live in. Of course, all the suggestions are collected in the CWG website as well.

Last month the kick off topic was literature and AEGEE-Budapest was one of the locals that got very enthusiastic when they got to know about it. On a cold evening in December some of their members met at a really artistic place of Budapest, to be able to feel inspired by the culture and the arts and the good work started.

They wanted to prepare something simple but interesting at the same time. In the end among all the suggestions they decided to combine two of them to get a more effective result: a flash mob to promote public book sharing.

Some days later, six of them met at the Móricz Zsigmond körtér, one of Budapest’s most crowded places, with the intention to show how rich and important the Hungarian literature is. The plan was as follows: some of them would stand in different parts of the square and start reading passages of Füveskönyv, one of the books of Sándor Márai, where this famous Hungarian writer and poet quotes everyday life. After a while the courageous readers would stop reading and leave the books on the benches next to them.

At first nobody was interested in the performance, but later more and more people started to listen to it. Most of the people were retired, but there were a lot of children too.

In any case, the experience was worth it, and even if no one dared to ask them what all this was about, people were enjoying: ”We felt that we did something cultural, and we gave some beauty to the grey and boring weekdays. I think it was a great start of the project and we are excited about the next topics”, says Dóra Andorkó, coordinator of the event of AEGEE-Budapest.

Now the CWG is in the month of photography, so what are you waiting for? Let’s have Culture Everywhere!

Written by Dóra Andorkó, AEGEE-Budapest and Guillermo García Tabarés, AEGEE-Barcelona and member of the Culture Working Group

Photos by Zsanett Dobra, AEGEE-Budapest.

“Do the textbooks we learn from in school reveal and shape national attitudes?” This was the title for the first online thematic discussion of the renewed Culture Working Group (CWG) that was held in early December 2012. Even though it was a rather cold evening, there we were ten enthusiast members to discuss the power of textbooks and to influence one another from a cultural and national point of view.

So, why focusing on such a topic? After all, textbooks are the first books that children have in their hands and that somehow shape their first perceptions of the world. Their contents are mostly decided upon by governments, who might use their influence to introduce a rather nationalistic component. As the discussion went further, we realized that this was more complicated than it seemed.

West vs. East: Do we as Europeans learn the same?

One of the things that shocked most of us immediately was that, whereas most of the Central and Eastern European countries have a wider overview on Europe’s history, Western European students tend to focus more on their area and simply forget about the East. “We only learn about the USSR, the fall of the Soviet Union, and not much more”, most of them recalled.

All the members agreed that, as Europeisation is going further, it is essential to learn more about our neighbours and try avoiding such Western-centrism. Kristóf Papp, from AEGEE-Budapest, mentioned this point as a key to strengthening a European identity. Guillermo García Tabarés, from AEGEE-Barcelona and CWG speaker, suggested that maybe “we shouldn’t go so deep into local level history, because it can promote nationalism without any based root, and go a bit more international to be able to understand our neighbours and accept them not as the traditional enemies”.

However, it’s true that it would be hard for most European countries to have the same attitude towards wars or some other recent events in our history, as Ola Zalecka, from AEGEE-Toruń, mentioned. Sebastian Hitz, from AEGEE-Heidelberg, added that “history teaching is not only about facts, but about analysis and interpretation” and that “nationalisms are shaped when history is taught in such a judging way”.

So, should we learn regional, state or international level?

In this sense, there is a strong division among countries. On the one hand, the Spanish and Italian participants that were at the discussion agreed that regional history, language and literature have a strong presence in textbooks’ contents. This can lead sometimes to a political confrontation between the centrist and nationalist parties ruling their country.

On the other hand, we learnt that other countries, such as Poland or Hungary, don’t pay extra attention to regions as much as national and international history. But we could observe some differences even in the same country, like in Italy. Alessio Caddeo from AEGEE-Venezia and Claudia Maria Scampinato from AEGEE-Catania exposed their views: whereas in Sardinia the content is more focused on Italian history, students in Sicily tend to learn more on their regional history.

With this in mind, the discussion led to two other questions. The first one was: Should Europeans learn about history focused more in a regional, national or international level, or even creating an European textbook? Even though we aim to create a European identity, we agreed that we shouldn’t keep our nations or regions aside, as Europe is based on its diversity.

We also discussed about the periods of history we should learn about. Should we focus on recent history rather than ancient one, in order to understand better our current situation? This led to a strong debate. Whereas some thought that we should indeed give more importance to contemporary history, others argued that we can learn a lot from the past, and that we often “have to go one step back in history to understand people’s behaviour”.

What can AEGEE do? 

However, we agreed that there’s still a long way to go to increase our awareness. Fortunately, we could count on some proposals for projects that could be developed within the CWG by our active members, and this was indeed very encouraging. After two hours and a half discussing we reached to the conclusion that AEGEE, as an organization concerned about European cultural awareness, plays an important and successful role.

We are on the right track since we have noticed that many of the Westerners have known and understood better the Eastern European history through other AEGEE members and the other way round.

Do you want to know more about textbooks? The following links will provide you with more information on the topic:

The Economist

CDSEE.org 

A textbook for Europe? 

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona and member of the Culture Working Group

A few months went by since the Culture Working Group chose Sibiu as the AEGEE Capital of Culture, and host of its 15 years anniversary event. And I can even remember how AEGEE-Sibiu’s proposal attracted us, by showing a perfect understanding of how intercultural dynamics really functions, emphasizing the need to create an open and tolerant society and supporting cooperation and mobility. And what better way to do this will there be, other than meeting up and getting to know each other’s cultures?

Our collaboration with AEGEE-Sibiu has been amazing so far. We discovered very inventive and enthusiastic youngsters, many of them new members, but who also get the support of older ones who have a background in cultural studies. How was it for them to win? “It’s that can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world-class feeling! We’re so excited! Sibiu gets to be Capital of Culture one more time!” said Raluca Roca, the President of AEGEE-Sibiu. And indeed, Sibiu was actually European Capital of Culture in 2007. Therefore, it is a city with a rich cultural heritage, with unique architecture and landscapes, and artistic manifestations taking place throughout the year. Not to mention that Sibiu is located in the heart of Transylvania, which is Romania’s most beautiful and most famous region. If you wonder how to reach Sibiu, we must tell you that it has its own airport, but it is also quite close to the cities of Tirgu-Mures and Cluj-Napoca.

And of course, the two teams, AEGEE-Sibiu and Culture Working Group got together in order to come up with a special programme for participants. And, in a city like this, the ideas were pretty numerous as well. Think about… the city tour of Sibiu, cultural games, a workshop on international humour, theatre improvisation, Romanian movie night, museum rally, traditional Romanian party, and, for the most active participants, a visit to the Paltinis ski resort. What you also must know is that the dates of the event are 28 November – 2 December, which means that it will include Romania’s National Day, which is the 1st of December, and which brings lots of celebrations on the city streets.

This is an event you wouldn’t want to miss! You can find out more about our event and the application procedures in the intranet. But hurry up! The last day to apply is the 28th of October.

Written by Alexandra Vilcu, AEGEE-Milano