The Europeana 1989 project is offering a new platform to commemorate events of that momentous year. Under the slogan We Made History, Europeana 1989 is assembling a collection of documents and testimonials that will offer a novel and varied perspective on the monumental period of change.
Europeana 1989 is the newest endeavour of Europeana, a crowd-sourced digital archive of European history. Europeana 1914-1918, their earlier collection detailing the experiences of the First World War from across Europe, currently houses 2,500 stories and over 40,000 digital files. Now turning their focus to 1989, Europeana hopes to offer a history that goes beyond the pages of history textbooks and official documentation. Noting that “it was the people on the streets” who pulled down the Berlin Wall, Europeana 1989 aims to tell the story of those people from the streets.
Europeana 1989 is currently soliciting contributions to their online collection, hosted by historypin. Photos, video, official documents, personal correspondence and short individual accounts are scanned and organized by subject, date, and location. Browsing the site, one can find a family photo of two young girls posing with a cake baked in celebration of German unification. A popular story reproduces the diary of Claudia Zundel, who writes that 13 November 1989 “really does seem to be a ‘historic day.’” A collection of images from Prague show police and citizens meeting on a crowded square.
Here one finds not the “great men” and infinitely reproduced images of the fall of communism, but rather personal and idiosyncratic testimonials of the time. Without a unified narrative or defined perspective, the varied contributions to Europeana 1989 produce a virtual museum that approaches the era from multiple perspectives and allows the viewer to relate to and understand the collection as they will.
Brīvības bulvāris in Riga, 23 August 1989, Author: Frank Drauschke/Facts & Files
At present, the searchable map shows that none of the 6,912 contributions come from Poland. Starting 3 June, the project’s organizers will be in Poland collecting and scanning memorabilia. While it is possible to upload directly to the site, those who might want assistance can bring their items to the following collections points:
The 8th and 9th of June in the History Meeting House Street, Karowa 20 in Warsaw, (on the 8th from 14:00 - 20:00, on the 9th from 10:00 - 20:00).
The 14th and 15th of June, Kórnik Library at the Palace in the Old Market Działyński 78/79 in Poznan (from 10:00 - 20:00).
On the 21st and 22nd of June, the European Solidarity Centre Street. Shafts Piastowskie 24 in Gdansk (from 10:00 - 20:00).
Same place in 2012, photo. Google Streetview/ Historypin.
To the organizers of Europeana 1989, no item or detail is too small or inconsequential to be preserved. As Poles and others across Europe continue to contribute their memories and relics of 1989, we can look forward to an ever broader and more diverse picture of the era. This open approach inspires hope that stories and perspectives that might otherwise be overlooked in state museums or textbooks will find a place in the historical narrative. Europeana 1989 offers us a portal into the dynamic and diverse actors who changed in the world in 1989. They made history, and now they have a platform to write it.
Edited by Alena Aniskiewicz 04/06/2013