Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Prozhito project. Over the years, the team has published thousands of diary pages, preserved the voices of past generations, created a vital archive of personal history, and inspired thousands of people to study the past. We wish the project many more years, dedicated colleagues, and continued inspiration. May Prozhito continue to open the past to us so we can better understand the present.
Project participants Mikhail Melnichenko and Anastasia Pavlovskaya spoke to Kommersant in a long-form interview about how the idea for Prozhito was born, what they’ve accomplished over the past 10 years, and what plans they have for the future.
A short excerpt from the interview:
— You devote a lot of attention to diaries from the Siege of Leningrad. Are you also interested in exploring other historical periods in detail?
Mikhail: We’re actively working in several directions. For example, we’re particularly interested in diaries written by Soviet teenagers. These are very vivid texts that are extremely important for studying Soviet identity.
Right now, in collaboration with the Open List project, we’re compiling a collection of texts written by political prisoners. We know of 60–70 diaries that came to the attention of investigators and became part of criminal cases. These are texts written by people imprisoned for anti-Soviet counterrevolutionary agitation and propaganda.
— What’s the oldest diary in your archive?
Mikhail: Russian-language diaries in Russia began to appear in the early 18th century. The oldest document we’ve received for copying is a diary from 1819–1821.
— Who is the author?
Anastasia: We don’t even know his name. The diary came to us without any accompanying information. We know he was a man, a resident of St. Petersburg, most likely of German descent, and he worked in the Ministry of War. In his entries, he regularly mentions important officials of the time — Osterman-Tolstoy, Driesen, and others. He literally describes each day he lived: where he went, what he did. It’s all rather dry.
Mikhail: Still, it’s clear he lived in the historical Kolomna district — he often crossed the Neva to Vasilievsky Island.
Anastasia: He regularly went to Vasilievsky Island for work and to attend a Lutheran parish.
Mikhail: Do we know which one?
Anastasia: Yes, we do. The parish of St. Catherine’s Church. We know this because he frequently mentions the pastor — Johann Heinrich Busse.
Mikhail: Right… We hoped the Lutheran parish would help us identify the author, but so far, we haven’t succeeded.
— Who sent you this diary?
Mikhail: A very close friend of mine, a wonderful person, an antiquarian. He buys and sells historical documents. But (which is not typical for the antiquarian market) he’s willing to lend us documents for academic processing. That’s his civic stance — he believes this kind of material should be published.
He’s already purchased and sent us a number of interesting items. We do academic descriptions and transcriptions of them, and in return we get the chance to work with unique manuscripts, digitize them, and publish them.
Anastasia: This is one of the strengths of our project: we’re willing to process a document and return it to its owner. No other archive or museum institution operates this way.
Mikhail: We have a flexible system for legally processing and publishing manuscripts. Archive owners may allow partial publication or grant access for internal use only. That’s what sets Prozhito apart from traditional archives, which work under rigid protocols.
Ideally, we aim for full publication of the document — both its copies and content — without redaction. But sometimes the authors’ relatives ask us to remove certain fragments related to personal life or complex family matters. We agree, shorten the text, but always mark where excerpts were removed.
— Why do relatives bring you diaries in the first place? I'm interested in the ethical side of this: maybe the person who wrote the diary didn’t even want their relatives to read it, let alone have it made public.
Anastasia: These questions mostly arise when we deal with contemporary documents. But we don’t tend to ask them when it comes to a diary from 1819. We think that since it’s old, we have the right to publish it. And that same logic can be extended to other documents.
Many of those who bring us diaries believe their family archives are worth preserving. Many are concerned about the fate of their collections and understand that there may not be anyone who will be able to preserve them. Some people want to share their family history with the public… We’ve created a system where the diary of an ordinary person sits alongside the diary of a prominent one.
Sometimes someone comes to us and says: “I have my great-grandfather’s diaries, but he was just an ordinary man. There’s probably nothing of interest in them.”
Mikhail: That’s when our task is to show them we care — to help them realize the importance of this work.