The National Education Office of the Institute of National Remembrance is organizing a seminar for teachers which is taking place in the former Polish Borderlands on 19-26 October 2019. The route of the first edition of the seminar will lead its participants to unique places in Podolia.

Podolia is an important place in terms of Polish history and culture. In pre-partition Poland, it was a region of key strategic importance due to fertile soils and a network of fortresses defending the country against the invasions of Tartars and Turks. Kamianets-Podilskyi was one of ten cities to have the right to choose a king during free elections and was the most important center of Polish culture in the south-eastern territories of the Republic of Poland. Vinnytsia and Proskuriv - today the largest cities of Podolia - were royal cities of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Polish magnate families in Podolia: Zamoyscy, Radziwiłłów, Ostrogscy, Potoccy, Koniecpolscy, Lubomirscy, Sieniawscy, and Czartorscy. In Bar, on 29 February 1768, the Bar Confederation was formed in defense of the Catholic faith and the independence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Nowadays, Poles still live in Podolia - both on the Ukrainian and the Moldovan side of the border. Rybnica is one of the main centers of Poles in Moldova. According to the 2001 census, 3,794 Poles live in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine. 23,005 Poles live in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast, the central and southern parts of which are located are in Podolia.

The aim of the seminar is to familiarize its participants with the latest educational activities and projects of the IPN’s National Education Office, to establish contacts between teachers and Poles living in the East as well as to cultivate the memory of the Polish Borderlands