Aleksej Babiy about Krasnoyarsk‘s participation in the creation of an electronic Memorial-archive.
The mathematic and programmer Aleksei Babiy is the chairman of the Krasnoyarsk „Memorial organization. He has been being part of the Memorial movement since 1987. „Memorial’s“ main sphere of interest is being organized in a professional way – which means by using information technologies within their fields of activity: the data base about victims of political repressions, their website (HTTPS://www.memorial.krsk.ru), electronic archives etc. Aleksei is also servicing the blog «Çàïèñêè ñòàðïåðà» („Notes made by a codger“; translator’s note.) on livejournal.com. Only recently Aleksei Babiy’s new book „The internet as an instrument of public organizations“ was published in Krasnoyarsk.
Since 2011 the Krasnoyarsk „Memorial“ is taking part in the creation of a public, electronic Memorial archive. From July 7 to July 9 Aleksei attended the seminary „Prospects of the development of an electronic Memorial archive. Aleksei spoke about the spirit and purpose of the creation of such an archive and the participation of the Krasnoyarsk Memorial in this project with Êîãèòà!ðó (Kogita!ru).
Aleksei Babiyj: „The sense is a very simple one. All we have done in Krasnoyarsk during the past fifteen years, can be found here – all the very same, but on a higher level, on a more completed, perfected technological platform, but the vector shows into the same direction. I feel myself within this vectorial scope – it is exactly what Memorial has to do now, in the present situation; otherwise, everything people have so devotedly compiled over many years will get lost, destroyed – so much for …. Why has all this been done? Primarily people might have got a notion that this would not make any sense, quite true but the idea was a very reasonable one for the Memorial movement. Of course, „Memorial“ members leave the organization for reasons of age or for some other reason. But they had their archives.
A new sense, a new tenor – to draw on new people and involve them in this work, no “Memorial” members, but people who also see the sense in this task. Maybe this will turn out to be even more valuable. A public organization is not necessarily an institution, which needs statutes, membership cards etc., for, nowadays, it can as well exist in a completely different forms. What I have in mind are network organizations, which, in no way, play their part worse than a public organization. Perhaps, this new form will initiate a transformation process, which, in the end, leads to a new quality of Memorial’s work, more precisely – the very part of Memorial’s activities, which relates to the preservation of memoirs. More probably than not things will develop into the above-mentioned direction.
As far as Krasnoyarsk is concerned, we have been aware of all this already
fifteen years ago. .
And we started to realize this concretely in 1998. Since then we have been
digitizing every single information we have; we publish and service our
electronic archive, make copies; copies of our data base exist in many places,
including an archive abroad. Now we are continuously supporting this project by
starting to place our documents in the common data base. In technological terms
we will do what we have done all the time before. The only problem is that we
have to release enough time, for the number of Memorial’s fellow combatants is
decreasing. There are young people, no doubt, but their main concern is with
different issues. … Or there are people who could do that job, but they live in
places outside Krasnoyarsk; for the time being, they have no access to this
archive and can also not very well imagine how its structure looks like. There
are only very few people working for the archives, and their number is also
steadily decreasing. Anyway, we intend to continue our work. Especially in view
of the conditions and facts that presently happen in our country in the range of
politics, I see the creation of an electronic archive as one of the most
essential tasks. In Krasnoyarsk we teamed up late in 1987, and got organized
early in 1988. We have been collecting data over a period of 25 years; is this
now supposed to remain strictly for the birds? It’s too bad that 25 years of
life would get lost. This is the reason for why I highly appreciate this project.
We will continue working on out”.
Kogita!ru, 11.07.2012