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During June 10-14, the 21st regular meeting of the Polish-Ukrainian Committee of Experts on school history and geography textbooks content improving was held in Krakow (Poland). Marek Kornat (Committee co-chairman), extraordinary professor and head of History of diplomacy and totalitarian system department at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science, head of History of international relations department at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, habilitated doctor; Michal Sadlowski (Committee secretary); Marek Barwiński, extraordinary professor of University of Lodz, habilitated doctor; Piotr Krol, scholarly secretary of University of Warsaw Institute of History, doctor of history, Grzegorz Motyka, director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Science, professor, habilitated doctor; Karol Sanojca, professor of the University of Wroclaw, habilitated doctor, were the representatives of the Polish side.

Stanislav Kulchytskyi (Committee co-chairman), main scientist researcher of History of Ukraine in 20-30 years of the 20th century department of the Institute of History of National Academy of Science of Ukraine, doctor of historical sciences, professor; Raisa Yevtushenko (Committee secretary), chief specialist of Educational content, language policy and education of notional minorities department of General secondary and preschool education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine; Bieskova Nataliia, head of Educational content, language policy and education of national minorities department of General secondary and preschool education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine; Yehor Vradii, deputy director of “Tkuma” Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies scientific work, candidate of historical sciences; Ihor Hyrych, head of M. Hrushevskyi Institute Ukrainian Archaeography and source study department, doctor of historical sciences; Ivan Patryliak, dean of T. Shevchenko Kyiv National University History faculty, doctor of historical science, professor; Igor Shchupak, director of “Tkuma” Institute, Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine”, candidate of historical sciences, became the Committee participants.

O. Hisem, V. Vlasov and S. Kulchytskyi, O. Pometun and N. Hupan, Dr. I. Shchupak textbooks were among the books analyzed by the Polish experts. The textbook “Introduction to history” by I. Shchupak, I. Piskarova, O. Burlaka (“Introduction to history”. The textbook for the 5th grade of general secondary education institutions. “Orion” Publishing House, 2018) aroused great interest. Piotr Krol emphasized exceptionally good graphic design, an absolutely progressive QR-codes technology, noted the game moments in the book – “word clouds”, mentions of modern movies and popular computer games.

Moreover, the Committee members made during the meeting a reports: professor Marek Kornat “Was there a collaboration phenomenon in Poland occupied by Germany?”, professor Ivan Patryliak “Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians: military cooperation with the Nazis. Comparative analysis”, professor Grzegorz Motyka “The invaders crimes against citizens of the Second Polish Republic during World War II”, Dr. Igor Shchupak “Jews rescue during the Holocaust in the Eastern Galicia territory occupied by the Nazis: the specifics and universal history lessons”.

After the reports, there was the discussion, as a result of which the Committee decided to recommend the textbook authors to pay attention to new trends of national historiographies and make deeper the partnership dialogue among themselves, as well as to focus on the textbook historiography discourse for the memory policy formation great importance.

At the end of the work, it was determined that the book dedicated to the Ukrainian-Polish Committee work during the last 5 years will be published before December 2019. The next meeting will be devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Soviet-Polish war, end of World War II and the memory of these events and held in Kharkiv (Ukraine) in the first decade of June 2020.