1917. Free history

1917. Free history (Russian: «1917. Свободная история») is a Russian multimedia project that simulates what social media might have looked like in 1917. It was launched on 14 November 2016 and is scheduled to conclude on 18 January 2018, the centenary of the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. The project is authored and edited by Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and writer who was editor-in-chief of the TV channel Dozhd from 2010 to 2015. Karen Shainyan, a Russian journalist, is co-founder and CEO. The project draws on archival materials and presents them in the format of social media. More than 1,500 accounts of early twentieth-century people, newspapers and institutions have been created, including Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, Grigori Rasputin, Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the steamship Britannic, the Tretyakov Gallery, Sberbank, the newspaper Kommersant and The New York Times, among others. Materials are sourced not only from Russian archives but also from the Hoover Institution (Stanford), the German Foreign Ministry (Berlin), Columbia University (New York), the University of Leeds and the University of Helsinki. Financial support comes from Dmitry Zimin, founder of the Dynasty Foundation; Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex (Yandex is the publisher of the project); and German Gref, chairman of Sberbank. The social network VKontakte is a partner of the project. The opening took place on 15 November 2016 at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val in a style evoking the early twentieth century, with a promenade performance directed by Yuri Kvyatkovsky. Guests included Irina Khakamada, Natalya Sindeyeva, Alexei Pivovarov, Marianna Maksimovskaya, Mikhail Kozyrev and Ksenia Sobchak. In 2017 exhibitions were planned in Moscow and St Petersburg, and director Kirill Serebrennikov planned an immersive performance based on the project; in November a one-off documentary event dedicated to the centenary of the October Revolution was to be held at the Gogol Center. As part of a collaboration with Sberbank, the first Russian-language virtual-reality narrative film was created and shown at the Sberbank building on Old Arbat, directed by Yuri Kvyatkovsky. In February 2017, after a presentation in London, an English-language version of the project was launched. The London launch, like the one at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, was styled after 1917 and took place at Pushkin House. CNN journalist Sebastian Shukla reported on the participation of not only Russian but also foreign figures of 1917 — Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso and George V — and The Economist called the project "the social network of the revolution." On 11 February 2017 Mikhail Zygar gave a lecture about the project at the University of Cambridge.

1917. Free history was conceived by Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and writer who served as editor-in-chief of the TV channel Dozhd from 2010 to 2015. The project was launched on 14 November 2016, with an expected end date of 18 January 2018, the centenary of the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. It is a multimedia project that simulates what social media would have looked like in 1917, using archival materials presented in a social-media format. More than 1,500 accounts of early twentieth-century people, newspapers and institutions were created, including Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, Grigori Rasputin, Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the steamship Britannic, the Tretyakov Gallery, Sberbank, the newspaper Kommersant and The New York Times. The project draws on materials from Russian archives as well as the Hoover Institution (Stanford), the German Foreign Ministry (Berlin), Columbia University (New York), the University of Leeds and the University of Helsinki. Financial support came from Dmitry Zimin, founder of the Dynasty Foundation; Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex (Yandex is the publisher of the project); and German Gref, chairman of Sberbank. The social network VKontakte is a partner. The opening took place on 15 November 2016 at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, styled after the early twentieth century, with a promenade performance directed by Yuri Kvyatkovsky. Guests included Irina Khakamada, Natalya Sindeyeva, Alexei Pivovarov, Marianna Maksimovskaya, Mikhail Kozyrev and Ksenia Sobchak. In 2017, exhibitions were planned in Moscow and St Petersburg, and director Kirill Serebrennikov planned an immersive performance based on the project; in November a one-off documentary event dedicated to the centenary of the October Revolution was to be held at the Gogol Center. As part of a collaboration with Sberbank, the first Russian-language virtual-reality narrative film was created and shown at the Sberbank building on Old Arbat, directed by Yuri Kvyatkovsky. In February 2017, after a presentation in London, an English-language version of the project was launched. The London launch, like the one at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, was styled after 1917 and took place at Pushkin House. CNN journalist Sebastian Shukla reported on the participation of not only Russian but also foreign figures of 1917 — Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso and George V — and The Economist called the project "the social network of the revolution." On 11 February 2017 Mikhail Zygar gave a lecture about the project at the University of Cambridge.

• Project launched

• Opening event at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val

• English-language version launched in London

• Mikhail Zygar lecture at the University of Cambridge

• Planned one-off documentary event at the Gogol Center for the centenary of the October Revolution

• Expected end date of the project

A historical and educational multimedia project that translates archival documents into a social-media format, aimed at broad Russian and international audiences.

• project1917.ru website

  The main Russian-language platform presenting historical accounts in social-media format.

• English-language edition

  Launched in February 2017 after a London presentation.

• Sberbank VR film

  The first Russian-language virtual-reality narrative film, created in collaboration with Sberbank and shown at the Sberbank building on Old Arbat.

1. 1Wikidata entry for 1917. Free historywikidata.org
2. 2Russian Wikipedia article «1917. Свободная история»ru.wikipedia.org