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Description
The project Czech-Norwegian Memorabilia develops bilateral cooperation between the Department of Germanic Studies, Charles University, and Department of History, University of Trondheim, in the field of Norwegian and Czech history in the first half of 20th century. The main topics of the project are the Czech forced workers in Norway during WWII, the Czechoslovak exile in Norway in the years after 1948 and endeavour of the Czech Lappologist and historian of Scandinavia Václav Marek. The project offers an opportunity to share research and archival material among Norwegian and Czech experts in the war history. It enables innovative usage of teaching methods and possible growing of new experts. The project outcomes are new curricula, archival materials’ edition, an electronic database of memorabilia, a travelling exhibition and three roundtables.
Summary of project results
The project formed institutional and scholarly cooperation between the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Social History in the field of Czech-Norwegian war relations. The teaching of Czech- Norwegian relations largely neglected this topic. Therefore, the project team created new curricula focusing on war relations between Norway and Czechia and introduced new teaching courses for students of Scandinavian Studies. Furthermore, the project team organized the travelling exhibition and produced two publications: "Sent to the North: 15 Stories" and "Sent to the North. Czechs in forced labour in Norway".
The research team presented the results of the joint interest in a dozen popularization posts and articles on social, print, and audio-visual media. The project collaboration opened a new historical topic on the forced labour of Czechs in Norway, which received considerable attention in academic circles in the Czech Republic and Norway, and especially among the wider public in the Czech Republic. The researchers themselves were overwhelmed by the widespread media and public interest, which exceeded any expectations.
In addition to the introduction of new historical topics into academic teaching, the project output included also educational website www.noraci.cz (in Czech, Norwegian and English) presenting on-line database of Czech forced workers. The website had an average of 1000 new views per month. The researchers presented the project outcome in roll up and photo exhibition "Sent to the North" in eight museums and institutions in Prague, Teplice, Plzeň, Brno, Boskovice and Kobylí. The project has collected a number of new historical documents on both the Norwegian and Czech sides, which have led to joint publications. On the top of that, students used the collected documents in their qualification papers and scholars can use them as a basis for further international research in the future. The project topic received considerable resonance among the general and academic public and has clearly contributed to strengthening bilateral relations and helped to arouse interest in the war topic among the general and academic public in the Czech Republic.
Summary of bilateral results
The cooperation with the Norwegian partner was direct and smooth from the beginning, as he was interested in a common topic. The first peer-learning meeting at NTNU was crucial for mutual trust and establishing cooperation. The two teams communicated via emails and online via digital applications and cooperated during the first lockdown by participating in online learning. For the partner, this was the first successful EEA grants collaboration and the first partnership with a university in Central Europe. The partner had been working on a large-scale project on foreigners in Norway during the Second World War, but the involvement of the Czech team brought a new dimension into the collaboration. The collaboration was mutually beneficial, first in terms of obtaining new research materials and then by incorporating the new knowledge into education; and it also led to broad public involvement. The Norwegian partner was very helpful in introducing the Czech team, for example, to the work of the Norwegian Archive in Oslo, where they familiarised themselves with the complex agenda and enabled practical cooperation with this institution as well. Furthermore, the partner provided expert advice on the project publication outputs. Beyond the project outputs, a joint study was produced and published as a book chapter in spring 2022 in collaboration with the partner. During the project, both the project promoter and the project partner acquired a number of new skills and significantly increased their knowledge of the issues under study in the context of Czechoslovakia''s wartime history. The partner showed great interest in joint research and joint publications as well as further project cooperation. The successful cooperation has led to the submission of further EEA grants project, and a larger European project is under consideration.