On 17 September 2020, Prof. Krzysztof CZYŻEWSKI gives a special lecture at the College of Europe in Natolin entitled: "Borderland: The Concept in Practice".

The Borderland Foundation is one of the partner institutions in the DisTerrMem project. In October 2019 the workshops related to the project will take place in Warsaw

Cooperation, presentations and reinterpretations. From its very foundation, one of the aims of the Borderland Center in Sejny and the International Center for Dialogue in Krasnogruda has been sharing its everyday practices in a way that could be translated it into other cultural contexts.

Ruzanna Tsaturyan of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia spent two months with the Borderland Foundation in Sejny and Krasnogruda, Poland, where she discovered a wealth of approaches for supporting diversity in borderland communities.

A DisTerrMem project coordinator Sophie Whiting reflects on a full-day event that brought together DisTerrMem researchers and a group of civil society stakeholders, to share perspectives on the project’s ongoing development and ensure direct relevance of research findings to current practice. Video presentations from the event are accessible.

The University of Bath’s David Clarke finds that his research into the role of cultural practitioners in shaping people’s memories of disputed territories takes an ‘affective’ turn, during a visit to Polish project partner Fundacja Pogranicze (Borderland Foundation).

Krzysztof Czyżewski "Spirituality of Vilnius" to Vaidotas Daunys

Krzysztof Czyżewski "Mekaspoet" in The Brooklyn Rail; 2018 - Literary Nonfiction edited by Vyt Bakaitis.

Taking bad ideas seriously. How to read Hitler and Ilyin?  SIMAS ČELUTKA TIMOTHY SNYDER 28 August 2017. http://www.eurozine.com.

Historian Timothy Snyder, in conversation with Simas Čelutka of the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, discusses how to approach problematic works of political theory.

History professor Jan Gross is under investigation in his native Poland for slandering the Polish government — a crime punishable with a prison sentence of up to three years — after claiming in a new book that anti-Semitism was prevalent in the country after World War II. Gross is being investigated by the Krakow Prosecutor's Office for allegedly violating Statute 132, which prohibits "publicly accusing the Polish nation of organizing or being responsible for Nazi or communist crimes." The conservative League of Polish Families party pushed the statute through in 2006. Gross' book, "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz" was released in the United States in 2006 and published in Polish on Jan. 11. The book assesses post-World War II relations between Poles and Jewish Holocaust survivors, and accuses the Catholic church, the Communist party and the Polish intellectual community, among other groups, of complicity in wide-ranging anti-Semitism during that time.

Some scenes of that horror, related by Mr. Gross, will never leave you: a young man, head bleeding and bowed, surrounded by a crowd that slowly pelts him to death, stone by leisurely stone; a little boy, alone in the world after losing his entire family, crying each night after being bullied and beaten at school; well-dressed women being dragged from trains to have their heads crushed with iron rails; and the book's central event, the July 1946 pogrom in Kielce, the worst peacetime pogrom in post-WWII Europe, where the rage of the assailants was such that they even followed their victims to the hospital. When patients heard Jews were arriving, an eyewitness recalls, "a lot of the less sick ones got up to murder them."

Another scientist working across the Atlantic ocean, historian Marek Chodakiewicz does not agree with the theses of Professor Jan T. Gross. His book titled “Po Zagładzie” (After the Holocaust) also appeared recently in Polish bookshops 

Rz: What is your disagreement with Professor Gross? 

Marek Chodakiewicz, a historian: I agree with him that anti-Semitism was ubiquitous. But it was universal not only in Poland, but all over the world. Only in 1960s when the cultural paradigm was redefined, a more favorable attitude arose toward minorities. 

Does the fact that back in those days in Europe there was anti-Semitic public feeling, justifies the fact that after WWII, as Professor Gross put it, we would murder our Jewish neighbors? 

We murdered? I did not participate in that. We should ask Professor Gross to avoid collectivistic generalizations. I assume that an individual has a free will. And if the individual has a free will that implies that I can be a murderer or an angel or someone in between. And only I bear responsibility for that.

Krzysztof Czyżewski on Zygmunt Bauman. When I think about Zygmunt Bauman in the context of the activities of Borderland: about our meetings and conversations with him, I come to think about the three pillars of his thought which for me, a practician of the idea, have been of utmost importance.

The “New Agora’ Wandering Academy returns to the Balkans. Initiated by the Borderland Foundation in Sarajevo in 2006, the Academy has been devoted to reflection and practices aimed at overcoming the crisis of a multicultural society in the modern world.

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz HALMA network, joining in on the Borderland's project "Action Native Realm", wants to remind of the multicultural spirit he evoked in his autobiography “Rodzinna Europa” ("Native realm") which can be literally translated as “home Europe”.

Borderland School. An interview with Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz. How was the Borderland School established? The two-year cycle of meetings held in 2013-2014 was preceded by many different earlier events.

On behalf of the Borderland Foundation,Krasnogruda, Poland as well as the partnering Institutions: Belarusian Collegium, Minsk, Belarus; Arts Research Centre of Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia; Caucasus Foundation, Tbilisi, Georgia; and Development Centre “Democracy through Culture”, Kyiv, Ukraine

We would like to inform that the recrutation process for the 2013 Borderland School in Krasnogruda has been finalized. We received more than 130 applications, the majority of which were of very high quality, thus making the choice very difficult. Following persons were awarded with a place on the list of the chosen candidates:

"The Borderland School is a unique training programme for leaders of integrative activities in multicultural communities that will equip them with theoretical knowledge and practical skills in the domain of conducting a dialogue between social groups, religions and nations."

Dragan,

Thought a lot about you these days, again and again, trying to understand, and to grasp why. And how it must have been for you (since you knew), and why you kept it a secret, to so many friends, for long, I guess. And what it must have meant for your closest: your wife, your daughter. No answers. Some thoughts. New questions.

Shock and speechless, grim embarrassment, strong feelings of rebellion against fate, and all over: loss, and disbelief: it simply cannot be true. Cannot even hold your hand.

As usual, Dragan has got me thinking. About the nature of friendship, this time. About its many natures.