Prozhito: a diary archive
A Russian digital archive of personal diaries and family papers with search by date and name. Read what ordinary people wrote on this very day a century ago.
What it is
Prozhito (roughly "lived through") is a center at the European University at Saint Petersburg that collects personal documents: diaries, notebooks, letters, children's drawings. The main thing for readers is a corpus of published diaries and memoirs with advanced search. The second big section is a digital archive of private collections: family papers people have donated, scanned and described by volunteers.
The site also runs a blog with themed selections: diaries of teenagers during the Khrushchev Thaw, notes by people evacuated from besieged Leningrad, a Caucasus scholar's notebook, the diaries of polar researcher Nina Demme. There are research projects too, including a study of siege diaries.
Why we picked it
History books tell you what happened; Prozhito tells you how it felt. You can open the diary of a lathe operator, a geologist or a schoolkid and see that on days that later ended up in timelines, people were writing about the weather, queues, exams and falling in love. It pulls you in harder than a period drama, because the voices are real and there are lots of them. And it is a living archive: it keeps growing, and anyone with a computer and a few spare hours a week can volunteer. Note that everything is in Russian, including the interface, so you will want a browser translator unless you read the language.
Where to start
- Open the diary corpus and use its calendar to find entries on today's date in any year.
- Read the selection on Thaw-era teenagers.
- Browse the digital archive, for example drawings by a schoolboy in besieged Leningrad.
- Skim the blog for short stories about specific diarists and their notebooks.
- If you have old family diaries or letters, see how to donate copies.
Who it's for
Fans of history from below, humanities students and researchers, writers hunting for period detail, and anyone wondering what to do with a family archive.
Quick answers
Who runs it? The Prozhito Center at the European University at Saint Petersburg, with volunteers doing much of the digitizing.
Can I donate my own documents? Yes, the site has a section on sending copies of family papers.
What language are the materials in? Mostly Russian: these are diaries and letters of people in Russia and the USSR.
