How long can a Digital HIstory Exhibit Remain Viable?
I visited Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives, http://gulaghistory.org/, a project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. This project houses several exhibits including Days and Lives, in English and Russian, information on the Gulag: Soviet Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom, a travelling exhibit, and Tour a Gulag Camp: Perm 36. My visit focused on Days and Lives, an exhibit detailing a prisoner’s time at a camp beginning with arrest and trial.
Days and Lives includes a voice over and transcript describing life in the gulag. Along with the narration and a photo slide show, the story of a specific “assigned” prisoner guide is included. The guide portion did not live up to my expectation, as it is simply the transcript of an oral history from the “guide.” I could not tell that any guide other than Boris Chetverikov would ever be assigned.
The content of the exhibit is very powerful and the narration adds to the emotional weight. The narrator’s empathy for the gulag victims comes across clearly. Since it is narrated by Steven Barnes, the project director, this could be interpreted as a lack of objectivity, but I did not get that feeling. It simply came across as understanding from someone who has spent extensive time immersed in research on a very difficult subject.
On the technical side, this exhibit has a large team from varied backgrounds, locations, and disciplines. There are nearly as many editors and producers as historians and researchers. This shows that it is truly an interdisciplinary project. The team also included advisors from the Gulag Museum at Perm 36 in Russia and Lynne Viola who is one of the foremost experts on gulags. It was difficult to tell what formats were used for the exhibit, but it seems viable from an archival standpoint as some of the information dates back to 2006. The simple format may actually be a positive in this respect. Included within the project are podcasts, oral histories, and blogs. The blogs do not appear to have had much traffic, but the exhibit has been cited on several other websites, ranging from the academic, such as Found History.org, which is affiliated with members of the CHNM team, to YouTube. So, the project is definitely available to a large audience.
The project has received grants from the NEH, the U.S. Department of State, the Kennan Institute, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. It is also affiliated with a partnership between the National Park Service and the Gulag Museum Perm 36 sponsoring the travelling exhibit. So, while it may not have a great deal of flash or excitement compared with more current sites, this exhibit seems to have stood the test of time. It should continue to present the very human story of gulag victims for many who will never be able to travel to the actual Perm 36 historic site.     Â
