The Lithuanian capital hosted an exciting quest organised by the winners of the EENCE Citizenship Education Eduthon, which took place in Warsaw at the beginning of September.

Eleven teams searched for places and learnt interesting historical facts about the secret student society ‘Philomaths and Philaretas’, which operated in Vilnius in the early 19th century, their members and the most famous member of the society – Adam Mickiewicz.

This theme found a great response from the quest participants – Belarusians living now in Lithuania), and here is why:

1) The heroes of the quest are common for Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian history. By education and way of life they belonged to the common European elite, many of them were born on the Novogrudok land, within the borders of modern Belarus. This once again confirms that Belarusians associate themselves with European civilisation and European future.

2) Most of the heroes, to whom the quest was dedicated, after the trial of Philomatas and Filaretas were expelled from the Lithuanian lands to Russia or emigrated to Europe, but nevertheless did not disappear, each of them showed himself in emigration or in exile as a personality, studied nature, ethnography, founded museums, held positions in the new homeland. This throws an emotional ‘bridge’ between the heroes of the quest and its participants.

The quest participants searched for artefacts on the streets of Vilnius according to the tasks and entered the answers into a Telegram bot developed with the technical support of the Urban Legend startup. Each participant received souvenirs to remember the quest, and the teams that took the first 3 places received prizes.

The souvenirs and prizes were chosen according to the theme of the quest and reminded of the heroes and Vilnius University – the alma mater of the Philomaths and Philaretians, which was their intellectual centre.

The teams were given a special printout of the quests, made and stylised after the then newspaper ‘Wiadomości brukowe’

The final chord of the event was the Afterparty in the format of the Philomath party, which included a concert with songs of the 19th century, competitions on historical themes and awarding the winners.

The EENCE-Eduthon-2024 is organised by the Eastern European Association for Citizenship Education with the support of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) at the expense of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.