University Medal for Bożena Górczyńska

The historian Prof. Dr. Bożena Górczyńska from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, has been awarded the University Medal of the University of Freiburg. “With this honor, we recognize the services of Bożena Górczyńska on behalf of German-Polish understanding,” explained Rector Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein on a visit in Poznań. Górczyńska has been supervising a joint course between her university in Poznań and the Department of History at the University of Freiburg for more than 20 years.  

Górczyńska conducts research on the structure of national, economic, and political relations between Poland, Germany, and other European countries. She researched and taught at the University of Freiburg as a guest professor for Eastern European history in the 2004/05 winter semester. Górczyńska initiated a joint course together with Prof. Dr. Bernd Martin from the University of Freiburg’s Department of History in 1999. To date, more than 800 students from Poznań and Freiburg have participated in these German-Polish encounters, which provide them impressions of the other country and society in addition to the academic exchange. “European teaching is the foundation for strengthening a European identity,” stressed the Rector of the University of Freiburg, which is important for ensuring the unity of the continent for the future. For this reason, the EPICUR consortium, which includes both the University of Freiburg and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, also sees itself as a pan-European university.