From North Macedonia to Frankfurt (Oder) - concluding thoughts of the seminar "From Borders to Bridges"

Dr Naum Trajanovski is a recognised expert on the conflict of remembrance between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Referring to that conflict, he has also analysed other regions with his students in his seminar. The group used the theoretical findings to analyse border conflicts and remembrance policy disputes, which the participants often knew from their home countries or from travelling. Finally, they have explored the daily life of the German-Polish border towns together on excursions, for example to the Viadrina Museum and Słubice.

For some of the students, it was their first in-depth exploration of their university city. "The trip to Słubice was my very first visit to Poland," says Camille Poli. At Naum Trajanovski's seminar, the Master's student in European Studies was particularly interested in the question of how different versions of history can influence conflict-ridden border relations in Europe. He was impressed by the fact that Trajanovski himself comes from North Macedonia and brings with him a wealth of knowledge from the Balkan region. "That is something that is unfortunately not part of the classical German school education," says Camille Poli.

Camille himself knows from several contexts just how much discussions about the politics of remembrance can shape the present. In his French family's homeland, for example, colonial history and the Algerian liberation struggle are the main topics. During his youth in Germany, on the other hand, it was friends' discussions about the Nazi past in their families that led to discussions.

In the seminar, he learnt how different ways of communicating history - be it through museums, eyewitness accounts or memorials - can offer very different versions of history. Using the example of the Doppelstadt Frankfurt (Oder)-Słubice, it also became clear to him that interaction is sometimes characterised by much more banal things than the divided history: "It was interesting to see how the two towns interact less through a lived shared history and culture but actually through its differences. Common examples were students going to Słubice to get cheaper cigarettes and food; and Polish youth coming to the public gym in Frankfurt, because it was again cheaper for them."

His fellow students Irmak Azra Tekin, Risa Fujii and Konstantin Beburov also worked on the exhibition. The seminar "From Borders to Bridges: The Upward and Downward Spirals of Inter-State Relations in Europe" in the winter semester 2025/26 took place as part of a guest lectureship at the Viadrina funded by the Meyer Struckmann Foundation.