21st year of international knowledge contest

Dear sir or madam

Let me introduce you to the 17th international knowledge contest "Lidice for the 21st century".

The unique knowledge contest organized by the Lidice Memorial, a semi-budgetary organization of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague takes place under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic and the Central Bohemia Region.

The international knowledge contest "Lidice for the 21st Century" aims at supporting interest of young people in modern history and widening their knowledge by substantial and interesting events connected to the WWII period and historical events that followed. Its purpose is also to help preserve the memory of the people from the Central-Bohemian village of Lidice who were murdered by German Nazis in 1942 and deepen awareness in the youngest generation of historical events related to WWII, other totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and the transformation of the after-war legacy of Lidice up to the early 21st century.

The contest may be a suitable method for teaching history and building democratic values. The contest also supports education in language, stylistics and literature as well as media literacy of young people.

The 17th year of the contest is meant for pupils from 10–19 years of age. They can compete in one of four languages, Czech, English, German and Polish; the essay may also be written in Slovak language.

The contest takes place at the website www.lidice21.cz, where you can find complete information on the contest, an entry point for the registration for the contest, information on its progress and on previous years of the contest.

The contest consists of two rounds. The entrants are divided into two age categories: 10-14 and 15-19 years of age.

The 1st round has a specific knowledge test with 15 tasks for each category. Th entrants have several weeks for completing the test, they can go back to it repeatedly. The purpose of this part of the contest is to teach the students to work with sources and search for information. Then the entrants will write an essay on a given theme in a genre of their choice within 3,000 characters.  The top 21 contestants in each category will qualify for the second round.

The 2nd round has another 15 test tasks fot the finalists; the jury will assign points for the content and literary standard of each essay. The final placings of the entrants is defined by the sum of their scores from the 1st and 2nd rounds.

All entrants qualified for the 2nd round will be invited to the results announcement ceremony accompanied with varied side events. All finalists will receive a certificate of participation and material prizes.

Included is also the competition of schools,"The most active school".

We are looking forward to participation of your school and your students in the contest.

Mgr. Kamila Varaďová

Director of the Contest

Time schedule of the 17th "Lidice for the 21st century"