History 4.0 - Into the Past With Digital Tools and Interactive Text Adventures

The 6th generation of editors at the annual workshop in Hamburg | Photo: Körber-Stiftung
The 6th generation of editors at the annual workshop in Hamburg | Photo: Körber-Stiftung

More creative, more interactive, and more digital - with this goal in mind the eleven young editors of the EUSTORY History Campus Blog adopted this year’s thematic agenda. During the annual editorial workshop, which took place in Hamburg from 6 to 9 February, they were introduced to exciting new tools for their work.

The editors will work with promising digital tools: in addition to interactive maps, photo sliders, moving gifs and "historical" tweets, there will soon be other interactive formats and non-linear storytelling. In so-called text adventures, readers become actors and can influence the course of history by making their own decisions and thus, for instance, shape the development of the European continent.

Modernised monument to the Soviet Army (2011) | Photo: Flickr / Dr Doolittle BG (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Modernised monument to the Soviet Army (2011) | Photo: Flickr / Dr Doolittle BG (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Debating history as they encounter it in their every day lives remains the focus of the editors in their blogs. The first blog post of this 6th generation of editors was published during the workshop. The author Liliana (22) from Bulgaria, takes her readers to her hometown Sofia and introduces them to the "redesign" of a monument of the Red Army: Is it art, protest or vandalism when Soviet soldiers become American superheroes?

Click on image to watch a short video of Liliana and her colleagues
Click on image to watch a short video of Liliana and her colleagues

Liliana is new to the editorial team, she is studying International Relations in Sofia and she is particularly looking forward to working with authors from different countries. It is precisely this diversity that she appreciates: “We can’t simply think that the information that is provided to us by our country is the only truth. And so everyone, every each one of us, has to find his or her own truth. We have to see how history is being talked about in different countries, so that we can compare the information and, ultimately, have a better judgment of the situation.”

The contributions to the EUSTORY History Campus Blog will again be very personal this year, illustrating the diverse perspectives of young people from all over Europe and providing insights into national debates that often enough remain hidden.

Liliana's colleagees on the editorial team this year are Antonius (Germany), Jakob (Denmark), Rusudan (Georgia), Maria (Sweden), Phillip (Germany), Miguel (Spain), Taras (Ukraine), Decho (Bulgaria), Neasa (Ireland), Trixi (Germany) and Kate (Ukraine). This diverse team is coordinated by the experienced editors Gregor (Germany) and Milena (Serbia) and gets editorial support from German journalist Clemens Schöll.

If you are a young European with an interest in writing, please contact the editorial team at the e-mail address <info@historycampus.org>. The team is always happy to welcome young authors with fresh perspectives and exciting personal approaches to questions of history and identity. Every autumn you have the opportunity to apply for participation in the editorial team. The announcement is published on the EUSTORY History Campus portal: https://www.historycampus.org/


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