We Recommend - REESOURCES. Rethinking Eastern Europe

The “Diary-Writing Competitions” (Konkursy pamiętnikarskie) project is a research initiative developed by the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw, dedicated to the study and systematization of a unique Polish sociological phenomenon: public memoir competitions. Originating in the interwar period, these competitions gained widespread popularity throughout the twentieth century, generating a vast repository of autobiographical materials and ego-documents from diverse social groups, including peasants, workers, and youth. The project aims to map this extensive archival heritage by providing a comprehensive digital database of the competitions and their associated primary sources. On the platform, users can explore detailed catalogs, digitized personal narratives, and accompanying scholarly essays.

The goal of an interdisciplinary and inter-university project “The Black Sea and its Port-Cities, 1774–1914” is to research, analyze, and synthesize the socioeconomic development of 24 Black Sea port cities, which once formed the world’s largest grain-exporting region and became a vital component of the global economy. Users of the website have access to a database that brings together English-translated archival documents from various countries (specifically Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, and Turkey). Additionally, the website can be navigated by port city, with each featuring a selection of research texts on the local economy, urban landscape, cultures, and communities. Furthermore, articles and monographs about the Black Sea region are available on the web-site.

The “Mariupol Greeks” website was created to preserve and promote the historical and cultural heritage of the community of descendants of Crimean Christians, who have lived compactly in the Azov region since 1779–1780. Examining the Crimean period of the Mariupol Greeks’ history, one can conclude that this is one of the oldest ethnic communities residing in Ukraine. Its existence is currently under threat due to Russian invasion to Ukraine, while its cultural heritage is being looted and destroyed by the invaders. This is clearly evident in the case of the museum collections of Mariupol and Donetsk. The goal of the project is to serve as a digital information hub where materials regarding the history, language, and culture of the Mariupol Greeks will be gradually accumulated and preserved. In addition to original articles on the culture and history of the Mariupol Greeks in Ukrainian and English, the website features scanned archival records from the Mariupol Greek Court and selections of current academic publications.

The project “Treasures of Ukraine” entails the digitization and provision of remote access to the collections of the Odesa National Scientific Library, which preserve over 200,000 rare books that hold historical, cultural, and scientific value for Ukraine and are subject to inclusion in the State Register of National Cultural Heritage. This project preserves the cultural heritage of Ukraine for the purpose of its research, promotion, and integration into the global cultural information space. On the website, the search can be conducted by the following categories: books, newspapers, journals, cartographic, sheet music or fine arts publications, and collections.

“European Memories of the GULAG” is an adaptable “continuous book” with its multimedia content is intended to scale up as current research progresses into the forced displacement of people from the vast area of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet empire. The materials, available in English, French, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian, cite sources and describe research methods and hypotheses, allowing an international audience to gain insight into current academic work. The project consists of five sections: the “Sound Archives” section presents the history of the Stalin-era deportations by theme, biography, geography and period; the “Articles” section gathers scholarly papers; the “Pathways into History” enables a wider public to understand history through its sources; the “Research Workshop” section introduces research approaches and methods, and “Research data” provides access to relevant historical materials.

“Online Primary Sources for the Study of Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe” aims to provide researchers and students with sources from these regions. The project’s database contains over two thousand diverse sources: photographs, audio and video materials, website links and descriptions, transcripts, and interactive maps. Sources can be found by the criteria of period, region, responsible institution, source type, and language. The project is curated by the Center for Eastern European, Russian, Caucasian and Central Asian Studies (CERCEC) in Paris.

The “TG Archive of the War” is a project by the Center for Urban History aimed at documenting how Ukrainians learn about, experience, and share testimonies regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war on Telegram. The “TG Archive of the War” contains downloaded copies of messages, photos, videos, and other types of data present in Telegram groups and channels related to the Russian invasion. The archival data primarily covers the period from February 24, 2022, to June 12, 2023. In certain cases, data outside this timeframe has been collected.

“The Digital History Handbook” contains educational materials on the use of digital tools and sources in historical research. A number of academic centers worldwide develop digital tools and methodologies for use in the humanities. Basic skills are usually sufficient for their application; however, there is a growing need for adapted educational materials that allow an understanding of the specifics of these tools and the skills to work with them in the context of the humanities and social sciences. This handbook offers lessons on mapping, creating digital publications, organizing sources, etc. All these materials are based on the “Programming Historian” resource and adapted to the Ukrainian context.

The Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin is a research institute that conducts numerous academic and cultural projects dedicated to Polish-German relations within the context of European history and culture. The research institute’s sphere of interest consists of the history of Polish-German relations; cultural studies, research on sites of memory, multilingualism, and multiculturalism in border regions; the history of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe; women’s and gender history; studies on the phenomena of exclusion and the participation of minorities; the methodology of humanities research and historical education; museum studies; the history of collecting; and the promotion of a culture of negotiation and compromise.

The “European Holocaust Research Infrastructure” portal offers access to information on Holocaust-related archival material held in institutions across Europe and beyond. EHRI has a Document Blog which is a space to share ideas about Holocaust-related archival documents, and their presentation and interpretation using digital tools. The portal has recently lauched online edition that focuses on Holocaust survivor´s testimonies of the so-called “Documentation Campaign” in Prague (Dokumentační akce), one of the earliest postwar projects to document the events of the Shoah, collecting evidence, documents, and witness testimonies.

“Uculture” is a knowledge space that seeks to help navigate almost any question regarding Ukrainian culture. Researchers from various fields are involved in this effort — archaeologists, economists, historians, cultural studies scholars, artists, and critics. The mission of the project is to present diverse Ukrainian culture to the interested public in an expert, engaging, and accessible manner, creating an active community of its supporters. The resource creates and collects various types of materials around the theme of culture: lectures, interviews, educational lessons, and textbooks. Thus, the project is aimed at everyone who interacts with culture in one way or another — teachers and professionals, as well as university students, schoolchildren, and anyone interested in the topic.

The “Seventeen Moments in Soviet History” portal is an online archive of primary sources on Soviet history, organized by seventeen significant years from 1917 to 1991. However, searches can be conducted not only by year but also by topic, or users can browse the entire content of the site and select materials of interest. The resource’s source base primarily consists of materials from the Russian Republic, but materials from other Soviet republics are also present. A feature of this resource is that all primary sources, whether grouped by topic or by year, are accompanied by an interpretive essay by a scholar of the relevant period and topic.

“Socialism Realised” is an educational environment that allows users to find and analyze multimedia content about communist regimes in Europe. It explores the specifics of life in the Eastern Bloc, using Czechoslovakia (1948–1989) as an example. The project’s materials aim to bring to life the experiences, thoughts, feelings, and problems of the people who lived in this era. The goal of the project is to demonstrate the difficulties and dilemmas of life under communism. The digitized catalog contains film excerpts, photographs, and textual sources (documents, personal letters, etc.), which are sorted by period and perspective (ideology and repression, memory and the personal).

Developed by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, “Ukraïnica: The Primary Database of Ukrainian Studies” is a comprehensive digital repository that integrates Ukrainian literary works, historical documents, and films with high-quality English translations. The platform is designed to streamline the teaching of Ukrainian studies globally by providing accessible resources and enabling educators to curate these materials into custom syllabi. Users can navigate the primary sources using six distinct taxonomies: tropes, periods, decades, genres, disciplines, author/director. Furthermore, registered users can organize selected materials into personalized reading lists, which can be exported to standard formats (Word, Excel, PDF) for easier classroom integration.

The “Copernico” portal, an initiative of the Herder Institute, unites research organizations dedicated to the communication and promotion of cultural heritage. Its objective is to present the shared history and heritage of Eastern Europe in a manner that is both academically rigorous and engaging. The resource seeks to enhance the visibility of academic research and to offer innovative approaches to the preservation and public representation of cultural heritage. Users can explore the platform through the “Sources” section, which aggregates key sources on the history of Eastern Europe with important contextual information (including maps, images, and statistics) in transcribed, translated, and partially annotated form. Alternatively, the “Topics” section features scholarly articles on various spheres of interest.

“Czechoslovaks in the Gulag” (Čechoslováci v Gulagu) is a project by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, dedicated to documenting the political repressions against Czech compatriots and Czechoslovak citizens in the Soviet Union. Drawing upon published eyewitness testimonies, specialized and popular articles, databases, exhibitions, video interviews, as well as links to related initiatives, the website enables users to effectively navigate this complex subject matter. Furthermore, it serves as a comprehensive guide to the documents gathered throughout the project’s framework and the resulting publications based on these materials.

“Fragile Heritage” is a digital portal dedicated to the architectural modernism of Ukraine’s frontline and temporarily occupied regions, featuring materials from both museum and private collections. The platform aggregates over two thousand photographs documenting modernist architecture across these vulnerable territories (specifically the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, alongside the Autonomous Republic of Crimea). Additionally, it provides open access to several dozen digitized documents pertaining to architecture and urban development. Users can navigate the repository by filtering their searches either by specific region or by material type.

The “Peripheral Histories?” portal is a platform for sharing new research on the regions and peoples of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe — areas often perceived in the West as geographically, politically, or culturally “peripheral”. Taking a transnational approach, the project encourages publications that explore lived experiences of liminality, borderlands, mobility, and migration. While the primary focus is historical, contributions from other academic disciplines are highly valued. Consequently, the “Peripheral Histories?” portal serves as a vital forum for early-career scholars to share their ongoing work and findings. Additionally, the website features a series of curated collections of useful digital resources.

This is the website of the non-governmental organization “After Silence” (Pislya Tyshi), which operates within the fields of memory studies, public history, and social anthropology to foster a critical understanding of Ukraine’s past and present. Since 2021, the organization has been documenting the testimonies of eyewitnesses to the traumatic events of the mid-twentieth century and digitizing their private archives. These efforts lay the foundation for public history projects designed to ensure that a broader audience, both in Ukraine and internationally, learns about our shared history and contemporary realities. Additionally, the website serves as a platform for tracking the organization’s ongoing events and current projects.

“UKRAINE: Great Transformations” is an archival platform dedicated to oral histories and materials documenting the profound shifts in the structure of Ukrainian peasant culture during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as changes in instrumental music and the traditional practices of kobzari and lirnyky. The “Oral History” collection features interviews with the older generation detailing the societal transformations brought about by forced collectivization and the Holodomor of 1932–1933. The “Instrumental and Vocal Music” collection offers access to recordings of instrumental performances and ritual chants sourced from various ethnographic regions of Ukraine. Finally, the “Kobzari and Lirnyky” collection focuses on audio and video recordings of 1990s traditional minstrels, alongside interviews and recordings of a new generation of musicians, fascinated by kobzarstvo and lyre-making, the idea of its preservation..

The “Digital Memory Storage” is an initiative by the Scientific Archive of the Institute of Archaeology (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) focused on digitizing archival holdings and providing open access to them. The Kyiv-based Archive currently preserves more than 70 distinct collections. Alongside excavation and field survey reports from across Ukraine, the repository contains the personal archives of eminent 19th- and 20th-century archaeologists, intellectuals, and cultural figures. The project’s website currently features digitized biographical and epistolary materials pertaining to Khvedir Vovk, Viktor Petrov (Domontovych), Mariia Viazmitina, and Serhii Hamchenko. Furthermore, it offers access to correspondence from Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Mykola Biliashivsky, and the Mortillet family, alongside a collection of glass-plate negatives and selected scholarly works spanning archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology.

The digital historical and educational project, “Defenseless Victims of Nazism”. The Third Reich implemented the inhumane Aktion T4 program, which essentially aimed at the extermination of individuals with physical and mental disabilities through euthanasia. Following the outbreak of the Second World War and the occupation of Eastern Europe, this practice of extermination persisted, and the Dnipropetrovsk region was no exception. At the onset of the occupation, the region housed a large psychiatric hospital in the village of Karl Marx (Igren’) and the Vasylkivska labor colony. During the occupation period, approximately 1,500 patients in the Dnipropetrovsk region were exterminated via lethal injections, starvation, exposure to cold, and executions. For many years, the specific details regarding the patients’ extermination remained unknown to both historians and the general public; however, this situation changed following the declassification of the former KGB archives. Drawing upon these documents, the project team developed a digital platform aimed at educating society about the crimes of the Nazi regime, facilitating the memorialization of the victims, and promoting the public rehabilitation of medical personnel unjustly convicted by Soviet legal system.