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What is history?

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It is something written by the winners.

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There is a stereotype that history
should be focused on the rulers,

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like Lenin or Trotsky.

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As a result, people
in many countries, like mine, Russia,

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look at history as something
that was predetermined

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or determined by the leaders,

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and common people could not
influence it in any way.

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Many Russians today do not believe
that Russia could ever have been

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or ever will be a truly democratic nation,

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and this is due to the way
history has been framed

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to the citizens of Russia.

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And this is not true.

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To prove it, I spent two years
of my life trying to go 100 years back,

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to the year 1917,

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the year of the Russian Revolution.

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I asked myself, what if the internet
and Facebook existed 100 years ago?

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So last year, we built
a social network for dead people,

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named Project1917.com.

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My team and I created our software,

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digitized and uploaded
all possible real diaries and letters

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written by more than 3,000 people

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100 years ago.

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So any user of our website or application

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can follow a news feed
for each day of 1917

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and read what people
like Stravinsky or Trotsky,

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Lenin or Pavlova
and others thought and felt.

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We watch all those personalities
being ordinary people like you and me,

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not demigods,

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and we see that history consists
of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses,

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not only their "genius ideas."

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Our project was a shock for many Russians,

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who used to think that our country
has always been an autocratic empire

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and the ideas of freedom and democracy
could never have prevailed,

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just because democracy
was not our destiny.

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But if we take a broader look,

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it's not that black and white.

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Yes, 1917 led to 70 years
of communist dictatorship.

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But with this project, we see that Russia
could have had a different history

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and a democratic future,
as any other country could or still can.

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Reading the posts from 1917,

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you learn that Russia
was the first country in the world

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to abolish the death penalty,

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or one of the first ones
to grant women voting rights.

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Knowing history and understanding
how ordinary people influenced history

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can help us create a better future,

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because history is just a rehearsal
of what's happening right now.

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We do need new ways of telling history,

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and this year, for example,

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we started a new online project
that is called 1968Digital.com,

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and that is an online documentary series

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that gives you an impression
of that year, 1968,

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a year marked by global social change

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that, in many ways,
created the world as we know it now.

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But we are making that history alive

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by imagining what if all the main
characters could use mobile phones ...

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just like that?

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And we see that a lot of individuals

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were facing the same challenges
and were fighting for the same values,

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no matter if they lived
in the US or in USSR

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or in France or in China
or in Czechoslovakia.

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By exposing history
in such a democratic way,

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through social media,

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we show that people in power
are not the only ones making choices.

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That gives any user a possibility
of reclaiming history.

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Ordinary people matter.

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They have an impact.

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Ideas matter.

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Journalists, scientists,
philosophers matter.

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We shape society.

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We all make history.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)