Ural Federal University Historians Use Digital Technology to Create Games and Reconstructions
A team of historians from Ural Federal University used digital technology to recreate different periods of Ekaterinburg’s history. Such reconstructions make a significant contribution to science and are useful for students and all those interested in history. Sergey Sokolov, Head of the Department of Russian History at UrFU, told about it on the air of Komsomolskaya Pravda Radio.
“UrFU has created a youth research laboratory for digital technologies in historical and cultural research. It brings together not only historians, but also philologists, linguists, and philosophers who implement several different projects. Specialists use digital technologies in historical and cultural, philological and other research,” says Sergey Sokolov.
Philologists are creating databases of Ural Federal University’s folklore and toponymic archives, which will be posted on the website in the future. The databases will make Ural folklore texts, collected over 70 years of expeditionary work by our scientists, more accessible. Historians are creating interactive maps, games, and other projects.
“We are now working with the protocols of the Ekaterinburg City Duma of the 19th and early 20th centuries. We want to make a database that will show the deputies present at the meeting, the issues they discussed, the budget and much more. Then we will make a digital resource from that to visualize the data. The plan is to visualize the decisions that were made by the City Duma, and overlay their results on the map of Ekaterinburg, to show how the city has changed due to the decisions made,” adds Sokolov.
In addition, with the support of a grant from the Potanin Foundation, the foundation launched a master’s program «Digital History». Its students work on projects in the digital environment. For example, on the site devoted to the history of the Youth Palace and the virtual museum of Uralmash (Urals Machine-Building Plant).
“Student projects are simpler, but also important. One example is the game “Man in the Age of Wars and Revolution”. In the game you have to live through the difficult years of the 20th century, from 1900 to 1953. You can choose who to play for – a man or a woman. The hero begins as a peasant, then passes about 10 stages. And at these stages, you have to make a choice. For example, in 1917, decide for whom – the Reds or Whites. And so in each important year in history, you have to choose some kind of line, ” explains Sergey Sokolov.
Digital technologies are also actively used in museums, adds the historian. For example, in the multimedia-historical park “Russia – My History,” where Sergey Sokolov and his colleagues worked on content on the history of the Sverdlovsk region. In addition, together with the Ekaterinburg History Museum, students of “Digital History” created a website with the reconstruction of Quarter 89 in the Turgenev – Lenin – Karl Liebknecht – Pervomayskaya square.
“In the 1930s, the quarters had numbers, which is why the project is called the Virtual Museum of the City Quarter 89. We wanted to show the history of the quarter and reconstruct its architectural appearance. The difficulty is that there were no visual materials from the 18th century, they have been appearing since the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. So we took only 1938, because it was the most detailed in terms of data. We reconstructed the historical environment, the architecture. You can click on the buildings – they are interactive – look at them, learn something,” concludes Sergey Sokolov.