The Revolution Will Be Live-Tweeted (Not In Russian, Though) · Global Voices
Collage by <PERSON>
October 2017 is more than halfway through, meaning we are getting closer to the centennial of what is often hailed as the most influential event of the 20th century: the 1917 October Revolution, which ushered in the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the creation of the Soviet Union.
The 100th anniversary has spurred the creation of numerous commemorative projects. Some are lecture series, and others are retrospective articles, though the most interesting are of course from the Russian perspective. Two projects aim to give a day-by-day account of this momentous year: Project 1917, created by independent TV network Dozhd’s editor-in-chief, and #1917Live, from Russian government-funded broadcaster RT.
Whereas Project 1917 presents English- and Russian-language primary sources, #1917Live takes a more interactive approach. This endeavor involves dozens of Twitter accounts posing as organizations and individuals “live tweeting” from the February Revolution on through the October Revolution.
There is, however, something missing from this presentation of the Russian view of events: #1917Live has almost no Russian-language content.
Seeing the October Revolution through the eyes of contemporary Russian society is important. It is, after all, their history and their revolution. Plus, RT being financed as it is by the Russian government, the #1917Live project allows us to see just how the government is approaching this delicate yet momentous period in history.
Russian revolution: 100 years later, still a difficult subject
In September, a crowd of about 100 people gathered at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. to attend a film screening marking the October Revolution's centennial. 534
If there is any one place to get the Russian government’s perspective on the events of 1917, this was it.
The film was the 1930s “Three Songs About Lenin,” an homage to <PERSON> who headed the revolution. As the title suggests, the film is made up of three segments, each focusing on particular narratives about <PERSON> and the October Revolution’s impact on the Eurasian continent. By way of introduction, the embassy’s cultural attaché stressed the need to study and review events and cultural creations in the hopes of “avoiding the mistakes of the past.”
These words echo the sentiments of Russian citizens. In a Levada Center poll from earlier this year, 44% of respondents said that more has to be known about the events of 1917 so as to “not repeat the mistakes of the past.” The second largest group, 34% of respondents, said Russia has to move forward and not stir up the events of that year. <PERSON>, who when speaking about the October Revolution last year emphatically declared that Russia is a united country, has taken the middle road, stating:
Российское общество нуждается в объективном, честном, глубоком анализе этих событий… [для] примирения, укрепления общественного, политического, гражданского согласия.
Russian society is in need of an objective, honest, and deep analysis of these events…for reconciliation and the strengthening of social, political, and civil harmony.
So far, the Russian government has not deviated from this course. There are, however, some promising projects, such as the new state TV biographical miniseries on revolutionary figure <PERSON>, and of course, #1917Live.
#1917Live: Recreating a revolution on Twitter
The main lynchpin of #1917Live is the Russian Telegraph (RT) Twitter account, a fictional newspaper that retweets and engages with the milieu of socialist revolutionaries and Tsarist officials that make up the #1917Live universe.
The “canon” of this universe is already established, but that has not prevented RT from having some fun; for example, the Russian Telegraph account will rename itself Revolutionary Times when the October Revolution is carried out. There was even a live Q&A with <PERSON> himself as he engaged with various people within the #1917Live community. 880