The participants of the Congress of Polish Geography held in Cra-cow on the 150 anniversary of the establishment at the Jagiellonian Universityof the first Chair of Geography in Poland, hereby address the following jubilee appeal to Poles, living both in Poland and abroad:
1. As a science concerned with the earth and its people, geography has made a significant contribution to the development of awareness and patriotic education of the Poles, revealing not only the beauty and uni-queness of our land, but also mentioning the need to use natural resour-ces in a reasonable way and to properly shape the spatial structure of our Homeland.
2. Polish geographers have always been actively involved in the strug-gle for the right to independence of Poland and the Polish people. Win-centy Pol, the first head of the Chair of Geography, as well as many other geographers with Eugeniusz Romer, a participant of the Peace Conferen-ce in Paris, the author of the first Geographical and Statistical Atlas of Poland, may serve as examples of this. During the difficult times of par-titions of Poland, geographers promoted knowledge of our country. They organised excursions for young people to show the national and state unity of Poland. They promoted a great movement of country-lovers which was born in the late 19th century and have played a significant role in patriotic education, especially of the younger generation of Poles. Simi-lar campaigns were undertaken by geographers who participated in the scouting movement. When Poland regained her independence in 1918, geographers were among the most active scientists doing research about Polish territories and as promoters of economic and social unification of all Polish regions, while at the same time pointing out the necessity to preserve local identity, especially the cultural aspects of each region of the Republic of Poland. Geographers were co-creators of the idea of re-gionalism, so strongly stressed in contemporary Europe.
3. During the years of the Nazi occupation, geographers actively participated in clandestine education (from primary to university level).
They were also active members of the resistance movement. Later, geo-graphers were among the first to take up research of the western and northern regions of Poland which were incorporated into the boundaries of Poland after World War II. Among the results of this work was the publication of an extensive “Monography of the River Oder”, published in 1948, the first such work in Polish. A number of other pioneer works enabled not only a better understanding of these regions, but also their characteristic features and identity.
4. The knowledge of geographers was used in detailed delineation of the borders of the Polish state after the two world wars. Many geogra-phers developed the principles of physical planning. They participated in research and the development of regional plans. They actively participa-ted in the development of a regional administration system beginning from 1918 to the most recent reorganisation in 1999.
5. To our great regret we must state that, the internationally renow-ned scientific achievements of Polish geography and its unquestionable educational and patriotic role have not been properly used in recent times by the state authorities of the Republic of Poland. We want to point out that this fact may adversely affect not only the general level of education of our society, but also initiate a process of gradual loss of the national and regional sense of identity in the near future.
2 During the period of progressive unification and globalisation, the
nations deeply rooted in their homeland soil, while developing extensive economic, cultural and political exchanges with all nations of the world, are striving for the protection of their national and regional heritage, stressing their natural, cultural and social identities. In Poland, a reverse trend may be observed.
Geography is a science which best serves to define natural as well as economic and social identity of countries and regions, so popular in to-day’s Europe idea of “Little Homelands”. This statement does not need justification at the end of the 20" century and on the threshold of the Third Millennium, as it is justified by the 150-year achievements of Po-lish geography and the output of world geography.
6. The participants of the Congress of Polish Geography who met in Kraków, appeal from this historic place, also on behalf of other geogra-phers, to the governmental authorities of the Republic of Poland and to the entire Polish society for the recognition of geography as a field of science indispensable, not only to general education of the individual but, first and foremost, as a prerequisite for our national and regional identity, our national pride and the sense of our value among the nations of the world.
In this situation we believe that a decision of the education authori-ties to limit the opportuniauthori-ties for Polish children to learn geography, both the geography of Poland and of other countries with which Poland will strengthen her partnership in the future is both dangerous and not justi-fied. In our view it is in conflict with the reform of the educational sys-tem based on “modular teaching”, since geography combines knowledge of natural, economic, political and social phenomena, so it is a “module”
consisting of several subjects. If we are striving for the improvement of the general education of the Polish people and for the patriotic education of youth, it is necessary to have geography as a separate subject, also in primary schools.
Participants of the Congress of Polish Geography [prepared by: S. Liszewski, A. fackoivskij Kraków, April 22-24, 1999