The project "A Person in History: (Post-)Soviet Experience" is a conversation about the Soviet past that offers an alternative to the state narrative. It is a space for collective exploration of 20th-century history from the perspective of a private individual who lives through this history in their own experience — and, therefore, an attempt to answer the question of who we are today and why.
For more than 20 years, the project existed in Russia as a school competition run by International Memorial. Russia’s war against Ukraine has placed everyone in a new historical situation.
In 2023, colleagues relaunched the project. As they note, in times of war, political terror, and censorship, a free, critical, and non-hierarchical conversation about history is more important than ever. But what does it mean today to speak about history in the Russian language? Which history are we talking about, and with whom? The perspective of "A Person in History" includes non-Russian Soviet histories. This is why cooperation and shared participation in joint projects are so important to its organizers — projects that help reveal the experience of individuals in history beyond metropolitan centers and official narratives.