History

In the past two weeks we have seen, visit and experienced a lot in Friesland. We have a good image about some things that are important to Friesland.

History

In the Provence House you can go back to the roots of Friesland, because in the Statenzaal there are paintings of the 'history' of Friesland.

Painting of St. Bonifatius                                Frisians are getting knighted

The paintings are about important moments in the history of Friesland. Interesting to know is how the Frisians look at their history. Because St. Bonifatius was killed by Frisians, but the painting shows how the Frisians are carefully listening to him. Here the Frisians look at him with pride. 

It's an example of how proud the Frisians are of their history.



Old meets new in the Provence house



An other example we can find in the archives of Tresoar. Here all of the Frisian history is stored. There are books of the university of Franeker. It doesn't excist anymore. I was closed down at the beginning of the 19th century. The books were sold as well. But to secure the Frisian history, Friesland bought it back. An other example of how pride the Frisians are of their history.







Books of the university of Franeker



Another thing the Frisians are proud of is the Planetarium of Franeker. It's special because it's still working. Also it's special because the man who has build it, Eise Eisinga, made it whitout any lectures about it. He didn't went to the university. He was an autodidact. 

Maybe that's another feature about the Frisian identity, they do what they want. They won't let anybody tell them what to do.





The Flat Earth Experience

 

Millions of years ago mankind lived in caves. People that lived in these caves needed to be with other people. Obviously a man who is a member of a group will feel safe and protected. People lived in groups and each one had specific characteristics. One of the main characteristics was the technique they used to hunt. Another one was the code which they used in order to communicate and the way they organized their defense in case of attack by dangerous enemies. Finally another important characteristic was how people’s behavior was influenced by nature.

According to archaeological findings, we can now assume that those groups coexisted in the same cave. Can this coexistence and the characteristics above define those groups’ identity? Maybe they do, but do we know for sure?

Has the need for people to belong somewhere changed over the years? I think not. I believe that the notion of identity is complicated. Maybe some people believe that identity in our days is more important than ever. Is that true or according to globalization, identity isn’t an issue to consider about? Finally, is identity an easy matter to realize?

The way of understanding someone’s identity is not only to research about it but also to have the opportunity to mingle with the specific nation you are interested in. During the last two weeks Irish, Greek and Dutch students had the opportunity to participate in the IP program visit in Friesland in the Netherlands trying to find out which elements are defined someone’s identity.

"We had the Flat Earth Experience"

On this blog we will share the impressions we had during the last two weeks. Subjects that were important are: Identitity, Landscape, History, Language and Art. We will shine our light on these subjects how we've experienced them.