Jury of contest "Person in History, Russia, 20th Century" held by HRC "Memorial" distinguishes papers of schoolchildren of Southern Russia

17 representatives of the Southern Federal District (SFD) became laureates of the 14th All-Russian contest of historical research papers of senior schoolchildren "Person in History, Russia, 20th Century", organized by the International Organization "Memorial".

On April 30, Moscow hosted the ceremony of awarding the winners of the contest.

The contest "Person in History, Russia, 20th Century" is held since 1999. It is part of an international network "Eustory", which brings together 20 European historical contests. In Russia, it is held with the support of the Union of Russian Regional Ethnographers, the Department of Regional History and Ethnography of the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), the International Charitable Foundation named after D. S. Likhachov. The number of the major sponsors of the contest includes the government of Moscow, the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, the "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" Foundation (Germany), the Koerber Foundation (Germany), the Heinrich Boell Foundation (Germany), the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Germany), and other foundations and organizations.

This year, the contest registered 1663 papers from more than 700 cities, villages and towns of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. The number of participants included schoolchildren from the North-Caucasian republics Adygea, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and North Ossetia; however, none of them were among the finalists. However, in this year, the Southern Federal District (SFD) came to the top: in total, the jury distinguished 143 papers, and 10 of them were written by representatives of the regions of southern Russia.

Thus, one of the first places of the contest was awarded to the schoolchildren of the tenth form from the school No. 6 in the city of Novocherkassk of the Rostov Region: Ekaterina Zagorulko, Alexandra Karaseva, Alexander Lysenko, and David Yunevich for their paper "With Great Thrill".

Vladimir Lukin, Russian Ombudsman, called the contest "the most remarkable patriotic and civic event in the country" and said that "for that contest, the 'Memorial' should be given the state award".

"Every year, the papers are very strong," the "Caucasian Knot" was told by Irina Yasina, President of the "Liberal Mission" Foundation. She continued: "Most stories are devoted to families, villagers, and some people close to those schoolchildren. This year, there was a great paper on inter-ethnic relations. Many of the papers are written with a heavy heart, though they are written by very young people."