Imperiia: A Spatial History of the Russian Empire

Reviewed by: Tuka Al-Sahlani

Review start: April 2, 2024

Site Link: https://imperiia.scalar.fas.harvard.edu/imperiia/index

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/89kfb

Data Sources

• Digitized images (maps, art work, drawings)
• Digital images
• Tableau visualizations
• Timeline
• Interactive maps
• Annotations

Processes

• Curated digital and digitized artifacts to create a “spatial history of the Russian Empire”
• Thematically organized artifacts and research/narrative text
• Visualization of data, maps, and artifacts
• Applied metadata to digitized artifacts (maps, images, etc.)

Presentation

The project is a multifaceted website that takes full advantage of the non-linear capacities of Scalar. The authors clearly state their goal on the landing page: This is where we tell stories and push the boundaries of narrative” (Welcome). The project is aesthetically pleasing and includes content menus pertaining to each facet of the project which provides users with clear directions of where to go next (or to navigate elsewhere). The project is highly interactive and user guided.

Digital Tools Used

• Scalar
• TimeLine JS
• Tableau

Languages

• English

Review

Imperiia is, as noted in its title, a spatial history of the Russian Empire. The project uses spatial information (maps, toponyms, and data sets) to tell the story of the Russian Empire. Centering spatial data, the authors of the project believe geographical information is crucial to the understanding and critical knowledge of the history of the Russian Empire.

The authors of the project thoroughly delineate their project in the About section by answering these six questions: Why Imperii Matters, Who We Are, How We Work, What We Work With, What We Make, and Support & Funding. This level of thoroughness is seen throughout the project. It is a large project with a wide breadth. The scope of the project is both intimidating and entertaining. However, users are encouraged to explore one or all of its sections. The Sections include: Projects, Dashboards, Data Catalog, MapStories, Galleries, Games, and Teach Our Content. The most exciting and innovative section is the Games section that allows users to learn about the history of the Russian Empire using card games designed using spatial and topographic artifacts from the Russian Empire. The Teach Our Content section is another section that is easy to maneuver with assignments that can be used separately or in alignment with other sections of the project. The authors mention that they are working on creating teaching modules as well.

This is an institutional project funded by “a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University” (Welcome). This support allows the project to be well maintained and to advance with more features, such as the forthcoming teaching modules. It is also worth noting that the authors have three main objectives when creating the projects or presenting the information. The goals are:1) to create new historical knowledge; 2) to solve a shared methodological problem; 3) to produce a user-friendly and publicly-accessible piece of history (Projects). I thoroughly enjoyed the interactive nature of this project and its self-guided features.

How does this project address information?
The information in this project is manipulated, curated, and analyzed in multiple ways. The authors state they: documents, interrogates, visualizes, and interprets the history of Imperial Russia (Welcome). The authors allow users to both make their own conclusions by providing datasets and to interact with the authors’ analysis and synthesis of the same information through projects such as TopoS that uses machine learning to aggregate information of many maps into usable data.

How well does this project handle information?
The metadata of the information provided in this project is thorough. This allows users to track the original artifacts as well as use the information in their scholarship and teaching with accurate citation and reference. The scope of the information can be overwhelming for users, but the indexing is helpful to guide the user. All in all, the project manages the information presented well and successfully to the goal of the project.