Natolin First Semester Study Trips: Three Destinations representing "Borderlands"

Between 20 and 25 September 2026, Natolin students of the Johannes Gutenberg Promotion took part in the First Semester Study Trips to three destinations under the overarching theme of “Borderlands.” Discover more about the destinations and study trip programmes below.

Podlasie and Suwalszczyzna as a Borderland: Contact Zone Between Political Orders, Cultures, and Strategic Imaginations

Podlasie is a region where questions of statehood, military geography, religious coexistence, imperial rivalry, forced displacement, memory, resilience, and modern deterrence have long intersected. Podlasie and the wider north-eastern frontier of Poland can be understood as a contact zone between political orders, empires, religions, languages, and strategic imaginations.

The study trip provided an opportunity to connect historical borderland politics with present-day European security debates, including deterrence, resilience, infrastructure vulnerability, hybrid operations, border management, memory policy, minority relations, and the protection of cultural and natural heritage under geopolitical pressure. Geopolitical considerations continue to affect the region and take different forms: the Polish and Lithuanian borders are also the external borders of the EU and NATO. Squeezed between Russia and Belarus, the 65-km-wide Suwałki Corridor is the only land connection linking the Baltic states with Poland and the rest of their NATO allies. The border with Belarus has various dimensions, including Białowieża as a borderland of nature and a site of hybrid pressures. Most prominently, Lukashenko has responded to EU sanctions by creating a migration crisis at the Lithuanian and Polish borders.

Galicia: Empires, Memory, and Security on Europe's Edge

This study trip invited students to explore several cities in the territory of former Galicia and reflect on the region's contemporary significance. The trip focused on some of the key phenomena associated with borderlands, as Galicia represents a particular space of memory for Poles, Ukrainians, Austrians, and Jews, who are now separated by borders. Students had the opportunity to learn about and compare the divergent perceptions of Galicia, which was initially a term created in 1772 to denote the territory on the margins of the Habsburg Monarchy, disappeared from political maps in 1918, and subsequently became a fragmented territory once again. Yet Galicia remains present as a mythical place that transcends both physical and temporal boundaries.

In addition, that year's study trip placed renewed emphasis on Galicia as a borderland of empires, strategy, and security: a region whose contested position between competing powers did not end with the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy but continues to shape how the area is defended, governed, and inhabited today. The ongoing war in Ukraine has turned the former Galician territory into a frontline of humanitarian response and civilian resilience, providing students with a direct, contemporary perspective on questions of infrastructure vulnerability, cross-border cooperation, and the strategic significance of a region long treated as peripheral.

The Many Silesias: Identities, Memories, Transitions

This study trip sought to familiarise students with the multiple identities and historical trajectories of the region of Silesia, its role as a historical and contemporary borderland, and its various transitions from one realm or state to another, from totalitarianism to democracy, and from an economy based on fossil fuels and industry towards a climate-neutral and ecologically friendly one.

Silesia is a model example of a borderland. Its main centres are Wrocław, the historic capital of Silesia, in Lower Silesia, and Katowice in Upper Silesia. Yet the region extends geographically, economically, mentally, and culturally beyond contemporary Polish borders into Czechia and Germany. Furthermore, as formal borders have moved and cut across the region over time, people have not always followed, despite episodes of expulsion and relocation. “Silesia” is thus not merely a piece of land but a scene of a shared and complex fate and a home to a distinct, independent identity.