Storing the Evasive
An Archive of Alternative Thinking in RuNet
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Internet feeds the illusion of an enduring access to sources and documents. But the reality is different. The life expectancy of Russian Internet documents is short, above all when they originate with human rights organisations, social movements, and marginal political opposition groups. This has several causes: The Internet itself is changing dynamically. The technical infrastructure is unstable, the activities of alternative groups are evasive, projects of short duration. The international community of Russia specialists faces the task of how to archive the alternative thinking articulated in RuNet. Setting up such an archive involves considerable expenditure in infrastructure and requires international cooperation.
(Osteuropa 11/2010, pp. 249–271)