Improvement of Balkan History Textbooks Project Reports

One of most recent initiatives of the History Foundation in the field of history education, namely Improvement of tehe Balkan History Textbooks Project, was completed in Semtember 2002. This eight-month pilot project was supported by UNESCO, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Turkey. The planning metting in Istanbul (June 17th-18th,2001) was followed by a workshop in Pamporovo (Semtember 8th-9th, 2001) and a conferance in Istanbul (November 30th-December 2nd,2001), with the participation of teams from Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania and Turkey.

The project aimed to bring together academics and history teachers from the Balkan countries; to review primary and -particulary- secondary level history textbooks currently in use; and to propose alternative ways of reflecting the political, social and cultural history of these countries. The main objective of the project was to prepare a final report on the history textbooks and the teaching of history in the five Balkan countries. Sine history education is in a ‘transition period’ in each of the five Balkan countries, this book at hand, which is the final report of the project should be considered as a ‘snap shot’ of the current state of the history education in the Balkans.