Annual Stage of the Project «St.Petersburg International Summer University for Culture and History» Completed
The annual stage of the project for the compatriots living abroad,
«Saint-Petersburg International Summer University for Culture and
History», has been completed.
Organizers: St.Petersburg House of Nationalities, with the assistance of St.Petersburg Committee for External Relations.
Total number of participants in 2009 is 99 people: they are
representatives of Bulgaria, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,
Estonia, Ukraine.
In 2009, the project «Saint-Petersburg International Summer University
for Culture and History» was for the first time held in a new format:
two shifts were arranged, each of which divided into two parts:
(1) training course in St.Petersburg – intensive lecture program (13 days);
(2) training and practical course in Village Staraya Ladoga based on
the archaeological expedition of the Institute of History of Material
Culture at RAS (13 days).
Within each shift, the rotation of participants was included. Thus, for
the first time the project was attended by 4 shifts of compatriots from
abroad. In 2009, the students of the Saint-Petersburg International
Summer University for Culture and History were for the first time
divided: a course for teachers of Russian language and history,
teaching and practical course in Village Staraya Ladoga for students
and pupils of senior grades. The experience of previous years (the
project lasts since 2004) demonstrated the interest of teachers of
Russian language and history in acquiring new knowledge from the
leading scholars of St. Petersburg. On return to their home countries,
the participants will give their knowledge to a wide range of
colleagues and students.
Lectures of 2009 were devoted to the history of Russian emigration,
which is a sore theme that has a great historical length and retains
its importance, for contemporary Russia as well. Such approach to the
selection of subjects for this year continues the tradition of
preparing the content for the St.Petersburg International Summer
University for Culture and History. Each shift was offered lectures on
20 subjects. Students were presented the result of an integrated and
comprehensive study of the history of Russian emigration in 1917–1991.
Each lecture is an original opus, specially prepared for the students
by the leading experts of St.Petersburg, professional historians,
researchers of the Russian diaspora, who work in the area of general
history, cultural history, sociology, and cultural studies, have
experience of teaching in high schools, and are currently dealing in
the research of topics concerning Russian diaspora.
Except for lectures, the students of the training course in
St.Petersburg participated in the round table «Problems and
Peculiarities of Teaching the Russian History in Various Countries» and
the seminar on «Russia and Compatriots. Programs of St.Petersburg
Concerning the Compatriots Abroad».
On completing the lecture course at the St. Petersburg International
Summer University for Culture and History, the high school students and
the pupils of senior grades received the certificates, while the
teachers of Russian language and history were given the Licences.
All students of the St.Petersburg International Summer University for
Culture and History in 2009 were provided with cultural and excursion
program, organized by St.Petersburg Committee for External Relations
and St.Petersburg SE «St.Petersburg House of Nationalities». Within the
confines of the project, the participants visited: The State Russian
Museum, the apartment-museum of Alexander Pushkin, literary monographic
exhibition «Pushkin. Life and Creative Activity», Memorial
Museum-Lyceum (Town Pushkin), a memorial museum-summer house of Pushkin
(Town Pushkin), Catherine’s Palace of State Museum-Preserve Tsarskoe
Celo, the Lower Park of the State Museum-Reserve«Peterhof», and took a
sightseeing bus tour «Petersburg of Pushkin» and around historical,
architectural, and archaeological museum-preserve Staraya Ladoga.
Following the summer session, an information package is being prepared,
that includes the lecture materials and the results of archaeological
excavations. This would be a scientific textbook on the history of
Russian emigation, produced as a CD-ROM and intended for distribution
among the professionals and at the libraries of educational
institutions that have Slavonic faculties, in the centers of
compatriots abroad and research institutions.
Source: Committee for External Relations of St.Petersburg