The popular-science portal www.swiatsybiru.pl, developed and curated by the Sybir Memorial Museum in cooperation with the Juliusz Mieroszewski Dialogue Centre, has been named a finalist in the 2024 Historical Event of the Year competition in the Education category.
We invite everyone to take part in the online voting, open from June 18 to August 25, 2025, at whr.muzhp.pl. Each user may cast one vote per day, selecting one project in each of the three categories: Education, Event, and Exhibition. The winners will be determined by the public vote.
About the project
The World of Sybir is a modern, bilingual (Polish-English) educational platform dedicated to the history of Polish deportations and exile into the Russian and Soviet empires. The portal features a rich collection of content, including popular-science articles, reports, interviews, archival photographs and documents, documentaries, video testimonies, podcasts, radio broadcasts, and an interactive segment titled “Secrets of Photographs.” This wide array of resources allows for in-depth exploration of exile history, supports both school and academic education, facilitates scholarly research, encourages the discovery of family stories, and shares the Polish perspective on the fate of Sybiraks with a global audience. All content is available free of charge, continually updated, and designed for a wide range of users — including teachers, students, researchers, journalists, Sybirak families, and individuals tracing their relatives’ pasts. The portal currently reaches users in over 100 countries, with more than 30% of traffic coming from outside Poland.
“Through the World of Sybir portal, we give voice to Sybiraks and preserve the memory of their fate. World of Sybir is a story about people and values,” says Professor Wojciech Śleszyński, Director of the Sybir Memorial Museum.
“This portal is not only a source of knowledge, but also a space for modern historical dialogue”, adds Tomasz Danilecki, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of the portal from the Scientific Department of the Sybir Memorial Museum.
Out of 135 projects submitted from Poland and abroad, the World of Sybir has advanced to the finals as one of the top five educational projects.
Contest Organizer: The Polish History Museum
Voting: June 18 – August 25, 2025
