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Digital Humanities in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia: Institutions

This guide is designed for scholars interested in the digital humanities field in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia.

Major institutions and networks for Digital Humanities in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia

Russian Digital Humanities Network
The Russian Digital Humanities Network is a network of researchers and research teams in Russia working in the field of Digital Humanities. It was founded in 2016, with the goal to strengthen partner relations in digital humanities, and to pursue collaborative digital humanities research, projects, events, and teaching methods in Russia as well as on the international level. The Russian Digital Humanities Network is an official partner of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH). The main coordination of the Network's activities takes place at the Department of Information Technologies in Creative and Cultural Industries of the Siberian Federal University in Krasnoyarsk. The current research partners are researchers and research teams from departments at Moscow State University, Saint Petersburg University, Higher School of Economics, ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Tomsk National State Research University, Perm National State Research University, Tambov State University, Altai State University, Ural Federal University, Izhevsk State Technical University, Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad, and Lobachevsky State University in Nizhnyi Novgorod. Among the Network's main research focus areas are data mining and data analysis; digital methods in literary studies, linguistics, cultural studies and history; creating and working with digital resources in the humanities; teaching about, and with, digital humanities; and new opportunities and challenges arising from digital humanities research. The research projects themselves primarily focus on Russia, and on (mostly pre-revolutionary) Russian history, language, and literature. On the Network's website one can find extensive information about its mission, and the partner institutions' projects and research focus areas.

 

Higher School of Economics (Moscow), Centre for Digital Humanities
The Higher School of Economics' Centre for Digital Humanities (part of the Faculty of Humanities), a vibrant research center for digital humanities founded in 2016, brings together digital humanities projects of researchers from a wide range of universities and other institutes in Russia. The Centre's orientation is strongly interdisciplinary, and includes philosophy, cultural studies, history, linguistics, literature, media, and geography. The Centre aims to promote new digital humanities methods and use them in humanities projects at HSE; develop theoretical studies for digital humanities; teach digital humanities in the shape of inter-departmental minors, courses in digital literacy, and the development of a Master's program in digital humanities; and organize academic digital humanities events in Russia and the CIS, such workshops, conferences, and lectures and activities that open up digital humanities for wider audiences. The Centre for Digital Humanities is a research partner within the Russian Digital Humanities Network. Additionally, it collaborates with organizations and institutes such as Memorial in Moscow that focus on more recent and political subjects, such as repression during the Soviet period. The Centre's website provides detailed information about its mission, affiliated researchers, projects, events, publications, and teaching materials and courses offered.

 

Perm State University, Center for Digital Humanities

The Center for Digital Humanities at Perm State University was established in 2016, and is one of the most active digital humanities centers in Russia. It aims to organize and conduct fundamental and applied interdisciplinary research in and with digital humanities, and to develop educational methods for the application of information technology in the humanities, e.g. in the form of a Master's program in digital humanities. The Center is part of the Russian Digital Humanities Network. Its main areas of research are the preservation of local heritage, local newspapers and magazines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, manuscripts, pre-revolutionary political history, and the Russian Revolution and civil war in the Perm regional periodical press. The website provides detailed information about the Center's research projects, publications, and educational programs. The Center recently (May 2017) held a large international digital humanities conference "Digital Humanities: Resources, Methods, and Research". 

 

Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries (DHN) 
This research consortium, founded in 2015, brings together researchers and institutions from Northern and Northeastern Europe, and aims to strengthen research, education, and communication in the field of digital humanities in the area. DHN seeks to achieve this through the coordination, organization, and support of activities such as conferences, workshops, and summer schools for students and scholars. On a broader level, DHN aims to promote interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as to cooperation between the academic and non-academic world, and to raise awareness about the significance of digital humanities. Its projects focus mainly on the creation of archives, databases, and platforms for the preservation, display, and investigation of local history, culture, folklore, and media. DHN is an official partner of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH)

 

Central European University Budapest, Digital Humanities Initiative
The Digital Humanities Initiative at CEU is an 18-month project aimed at investigating current digital humanities projects at the university, and creating structures to strengthen research and resources for digital humanities in the future. DHI seeks to enhance the dialogue among those groups and individuals who are already involved in digital humanities research, and to open up public conversations with digital humanities specialists, as well as workshops and lectures to strengthen and expand this community and the number of research partners. DHI's current projects focus primarily on the history and culture of Hungary, and Eastern and Southeastern Europe more broadly, and also include issues of political repression and social justice in past and present. These projects make extensive use of technologies for network science, spatial mapping and analysis, and the creation of visualizations, databases, and archives. DHI also offers a broad range of courses in computational methods, and a large number of course syllabi, guides, and research tools for digital humanities are available on the website. DHI is a partner organization of the DARIAH's (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) European network. DHI's website provides detailed information about events, projects, partner organizations, and teaching.  

 

Czech Digital Humanities Initiative
The Czech Digital Humanities Initiative (CZDHI) is an association of researchers who aim to represent and promote scholarship in the digital humanities, and to enhance communication and collaboration between Czech and international digital humanities communities. CZDHI pursues a wide variety of of research topics and methods, and encourages a diverse and interdisciplinary group of affiliates. The Initiative was founded in 2016 by over forty scholars from fifteen departments and institutions across the country, although most members are affiliated with Charles University (Prague) and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. CZDHI is an official partner of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH). 

 

Warsaw University, Digital Humanities Laboratory
The Digital Humanities Lab of Warsaw University (LaCH UW) was founded in 2015 at the initiative of fourteen units within the university; a combination of humanities departments, the faculties of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics, and the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling. The goal of the Lab is to facilitate collaboration beyond disciplines, both within and outside the academic realm, and within Poland as well as internationally. LaCH UW seeks to facilitate an environment in which humanists and IT specialists collaborate from the very beginning, and continue to do so after the completion of a project. The Lab's website includes an overview of current projects and a project database, as well as blogs and information about events and a digital humanities lecture series. Useful digital humanities tools and videos about computational methods, programming languages, digital archiving, and information management are available on the website.