Final Report of the 1956 Institute Foundation on the project Underground Streams from 2012 to 2014

(Project was supported by Open Society Institute Grant No. 20036488)

0. Summary

As we have signed the contract in summer 2012, we had half a year to replan and organize the project in details. During a serial of meetings project were covered by exact organizational frames. Ms Katalin Somlai, head of the Oral History Archive, member of the 1956 Institute Foundation Board directed the works of Our Twentieth Century. Pál Germuska, member of the Board was appointed to the post of financing manager of it. The Board discussed and approved the redefined schedule and set the participants the tasks for 2012.
Visszaemlékezések. Személyes történetek a 20. századból [Recollections: personal stories on the 20th century] was made up for the website instead of the draft title of the project (Our Twentieth Century) in order to have a distinctive and plain URL, easy to recall. During the first year the team set up and tested the technical framework of the development. Thus the structure of the site was traced and a detailed functional specification was worded. In the second and third phase in 2013-4 the fine structure was designed and finalized and the content of the site (thoroughly edited excerpts of individual recollections, photos, movies, documents etc.) was uploaded. Now at the beginning of 2015 the site is available with 20 personal life-courses. We hope we can double this amount to the end of 2015.

1. First development phase – 2012

2012 was a year of reconsidering and defining the theoretical grounds of the project Our Twentieth Century, as well as of planning the structure of the website where we are to provide the content development based on the rich collection of life interviews of the Oral History Archive.
A final title and subtitle Visszaemlékezések. Személyes történetek a 20. századból [Recollections: personal stories on the 20th century] was made up for the website instead of the draft title of the project in order to have a distinctive and plain URL, easy to recall. The domain name visszaemlekezesek.hu was registered
In this first phase of the project we aimed at setting the technical frames of the development. We did it so to have as soon as possible a structure of draft development in which we are going to test our concepts on the presentation of the recollections of the past. Thus the structure of the site was traced and a detailed functional specification was worded. We contacted several IT developers and after a selection process we found the one which we finally contracted. The initial results of our cooperation are already to be seen on the above mentioned site. Certainly, a hosting partner was also found.
Contemporary to the IT preparations the working group discussed and determined the theoratical bases for the selection of the life-interviews to be presented on the site. We proceeded in laying down the criteria for the editing of the several hour long interviews into smaller, comprehensible, yet telling excerpts. Also the terms of the two label clusters of 20th century Hungarian history and of individual life stages have been rethought in the light of the six destinies we chose, abridged and finalized for the trial version of the development. For this sample material texts and voice recording, photoes and personal documents were digitalized, biographies were written. Some 200 photoes were also selected from different databases and personal collections to be matched to the individual life stories and various historical processes. Similarly a dozen of documentary films were sorted. Criteria for the essential description of both the film excerpts and photoes were defined.

2. Second Development phase – 2013

The first quarter of a year of 2013 was dedicated to the planning and the design of the project’s pages, the IT elaboration of them and to the construction of the database structure behind the sites. Subsequently the interface for the administrators was made ready. A training course for the participants of the project was held and the pages of administration was under trial by using three interviews by way of experiment. Thus the interface was reshaped and corrected.
Contemporary to the test on the IT structure of the development the participants of the project could test and reconsider their concepts on the presentation of the interviews, too. The list of historical topics and private history themes were several times rethought in the light of the interviews under editing. Finally a list of 35 historical events which maps the 20th century of the Hungarian society and a list of 20 aspects of private life were worked out. These are the categories, the horizontal segments, along which the life interviews, the vertical direction, are selected and cut, and the content development offers in such a way an alternative reading of the history of the century.
By now ten several hundred page long life recollections were chosen, abridged and made ready for the purposes of the website. Short voice recordings and cv-s are matched to them. The texts of the recollections are supplemented with approximately 600 photoes, collected from private and public collections, which are categorized along the historical and private topics but they can be studied also cronologically apart in the photo collection. Similarly private documents, such as written memoirs, passports, certificates etc, are offered inserted in the texts of recollection, in the categories, and in a separate collection, as well. A dozen of documentary and private videos were also sorted to make the presentation more vivid.

3. Third Development phase – 2014

By the end of the year twenty life stories were edited, abridged and uploaded to the web-site. Voice recordings and cv-s were matched to them just as the previous year. The texts of the recollections are supplemented now with approximately 1200 photoes, collected from private and public collections. Editing and uploading of further ten interviews is in progress. Nevertheless, the site is ready to open – we plan it to March 2015 when we are going to  present all the results of the OSI grant No. 20036488 at a press-conference. Meanwhile one can reach the website www.visszaemlekezesek.hu by putting ’oha56hu’ as user, and ’20szazad’ as password.