Free history: experience 1917 in real time with this Russian social media-style project

A new site, 1917: Free History, lets you experience the leadup to the 1917 Russian Revolution in the form of a social media feed.

The site employs historical records, letters and newspaper extracts to provide a well-rounded and immersive look at the events of 1917, seen from the perspective of close to a thousand historical figures. Site users who find a specific figure particularly fascinating can “friend” them to make sure they never miss an update.

“Everything that’s happening to us now is to a certain degree a consequence of absolute misunderstanding of what happened then. It’s a period of time that no one really figured out,” project creator Mikhail Zygar, the former editor-in-chief of the independent Russian television channel TV Rain, said in an interview with The Moscow Times.

Is a social media-style initiative worthy of such a momentous event? Mr Zygar certainly thinks so.

“We are not being ironic, we are not making a comic website. The social network format is simply an excellent way of translating that epoch into contemporary language,” he stated.

Source: The Moscow Times