HISTORIA
The History Competition of the Swiss History Teachers´ Accosiation.
Homepage (in German, French, Italian)
Applications are open for the history competition 2007-2009, whose theme is "borders." Borders may be geographical and political, but they also may be societal - whether linguistic, social, cultural and religious; between the genders; between various city districts and between city and country; between young and old, or between accommodation and rebellion. The deadline for submission of projects is 25 April 2009.
Mercator Foundation Switzerland
The foundation supports projects dealing with innovations at
universities, activites for childrenand adolescents and tolerance
through internationals exchange.
Homepage (in German only)
EUSTORY Academies in 2008
24 September – 01 October 2008 in Scuol (Lower Engadine), Switzerland
The Engadine – Life in a remote but internationally connected mountain valley
Sent
Resarch group:
Carna, Katarian, Petya, Fabian
© Beno Baumberger
© Beno Baumberger
Sent is a typical village of the Engadin. However, there are also some particularities of the village which are connected with our general topic - migration. Sent was first mentioned in 930 and till 1900 it was the biggest village in the Engadine.In the 20 th century St. Moritz and Scuol became more developed and more important than Sent. The village of Sent was destroyed during the Thirty Years War and by several fires, last time in 1921. Like in the whole Enagdine the biggest part of the population lived from agriculture. It is represented by the typical terraces and the different kinds of animals. Sent is a small village nowadays but there are a school and two churches (the old one is just a ruin). The new one is a neo-Gothic parish church with distinctive tower. The architecture in Sent is traditional and modern in the same time.
© Beno Baumberger
There are various building styles such as houses built in the style of Engadine and patrician houses with baroque gables (also called Sentner gables). The influence from the country where people from the village emigrated, is obvious here. As you can see there is the big Toscanic influence and it can be observed in the style of the buildings - balconies and different shaped roofs. However, there are also traditional features like the windows and bow fronts decorated with sgrafitto and often some facades even adorned with wise sayings in Romansch language. So the architecture of Sent is a good example for the different influences brought by emigrants.
People migrated in the past, people migrate today and undoubtedly they will migrate in the future. The migrations are just a part of people and of eternal desire for better life. During our research in Sent we were trying to find out why did people decide to migrate, why did they choose this valley or to emigrate somewhere else and maybe what are the tendencies about this place. The reasons for migration were different. Mainly we can divide the reasons into the two groups. The first group is the push factors and the second are pull factors. The push factors are the factors, which force the people to emigrate and pull factors, are the advantage that someone takes if emigrate. The push factors in this area were the overpopulation, the poverty, the wars and the hard way of living. In the past, the most important thing for the people in the Alps was the agriculture. Because of the shorter growth cycle and the steepness of the landscape, the farmers complemented the agriculture with animal husbandry. Usually the farmers gave their livestock to the Alp during the summer season and cultivated there acres in the lower sites. During the winter period, the timber industry was a complimentary income. The natural circumstances didn't permit to support a high number of inhabitants. If family had more than one son, the younger son had to leave because they couldn't divide their estate. There were also other problems, it was often impossible to adopt the agricultural improvements for the mountainous regions and the industrialization was much slower in these regions. The pull factors were money, new jobs, new opportunities and better life. The people from Sent mostly emigrated to Venice or the other village in Toscana. They worked as confectionaries, hoteliers, salesman or they worked in coffee shops. In 1704 in Venice were 104 confectionaries, 95 of them belonged to people from Grisons. A lot of the people from Sent who got rich stayed in contact with their home village. So a lot of young people from Sent, between 12 and 14 years, because of that relation went to join them. Another aspect of migration was that in summer the emigrants came back for the holiday. They was called ‘Randolins' which in English means swallow. They built houses there, supported the village and brought back many new ideas as we can see in the architecture of the houses. The reasons why emigration stopped were development of the tourism, opening new jobs and possibility to earn money. The most of confectionaries, hotels and enterprises, which founded by the people from Sent, disappeared during The First World War but today still exists some of these confectionaries.
© Beno Baumberger
We met two persons who helped us in our research. Except the information they gave us some materials (brochures, booklets, etc.) and statistics which were very useful for our work. The first person we met was Mr. Cla Rauch, 66 years old, retired teacher who is typical example of local inhabitant. He grew up in Ftan but it was too small for him in one moment so he moved to Sent where he is living now and where he likes his life. He told us that he had studied in Zurich or Paris but he definitely wanted to live in Sent. His children have been living in the Grisons canton.
© Beno Baumberger
Then we interviewed Mrs. Elizabeth Poo who is 62 years old, retired teacher too. She gave to us the point of view of emigrants. She was born in Soloturn - a town in Switzerland too. She lived there but she moved to Ftan to work as teacher in the local school. So the one of her reasons for migration was job. The economic reasons are the first group of reasons for migrations. Elizabeth's husband grew up in Sent, his family has lived here for many years and his parents were farmers. Elizabeth's mother - in - law was Italian so there is another example for migration. Elizabeth moved to Sent because of her husband. So this is the social group of reasons. Nowadays some of her children study in bigger cities, some of them live here in the valley. But she said that all they want to live here and the reason is simple. People want to live where they feel good. Elisabeth's children grew up here and there Sources of information: - 2 inteviews; is a strong connection between them and the nature. It is part of them, here are their friends so in this valley the feel like they are at home. Talking with Mr. Rauch and with Mrs. Poo helped us to understand better the reasons for migrations and go deeper to the topic.
According to the interviews we find out that a language and a religion are one of the most important factors of integration. In the past it was impossible to be integrated without learning languages, but today situation is different. Because of that Romanch will disappear in the future. Also it is easier to get integrated if you are protestant (Most of the people in Sent are protestant). Sent is good example for influence and effects of migration.
Sources of information: - 2 interviews; booklets, books, statistics.
