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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Affirmation of Serb-Polish cultural ties

Belgrade, 19 July 2006

State Secretary at the Serbian Ministry for Diaspora Aleksandar Cotric received today 12 Serbian language students from the Slavic languages department at the University in Lodz in Poland and said that Serbia sees students of Serbian in the world as members of Serbian diaspora.

Author: FoNet

Cotric said that students are the best ambassadors, and that they contribute to the revival of Serb-Polish friendly ties and promote Serbian culture and language. He specified that 400 young Poles study Serbian at eight universities in Poland.

He said that there are many similarities between Serbs and Poles and that they share a similar history, origin and language. Also, both countries have a very big diaspora, Poland's consisting of more than 6 million Poles.

Cotric used the occasion to urge the improvement of transport links between the two states because there is still no direct flight, or direct train line between Belgrade and Warsaw.

Professor Janko Vujinovic, who leads the group of Polish students on their visit to Serbia and who has been living in Poland since 2000 when the study of Serbian was introduced to Polish universities, said that the first generation of students of the Serbian language has already completed their master studies. At the moment, 56 students are studying Serbian as the first foreign language and 19 as the second at the Department for South-Slavic Philology, where Serbian, Bulgarian and Slovenian are studied.

Ivona Skalevska, who is a second year student of Serbian at the University in Lodz, said that she decided to study Serbian because there are few people in Poland who can speak it.

She said that the visit to Belgrade is very useful for her because she can speak in Serbian with people in shops, bars and in the street.

Gregor Stefanjak is also a second year student of Serbian and is interested in all Slavic languages. He decided to study Serbian because he finds it interesting because of its many variants and dialects.

Serbian Assistant Minister of Education and Sport Emilija Stankovic said that there is a centre for Serbian as a foreign language at the Belgrade Faculty of Philology, at which courses are held.

First and second year students at the Department for South-Slavic Philology of the University in Lodz arrived to Belgrade on July 10 for a three-week summer language course, organised under the auspices of the Serbian Ministry of Education and Sport.

Summer courses are held from June 19 to September 8 and the Polish students will stay in Belgrade until July 28.

During their three-week stay in Belgrade, students from Lodz will attend lectures in contemporary Serbian for free. They were also given free accommodation in a hall of residence, and a scholarship of 10,000 dinars.

During the meeting with students, Cotric conveyed his impressions from his recent visit to Poland, when he met with representatives of the Serbian diaspora and talked about important issues for the life of Serbian emigrants in Poland and their children, realisation of their rights in the relationship with the mother country and different forms of cultural cooperation.