Gustav Jaeger. Homer Among the Greeks. 1808 / Wikimedia Commons
Dear readers, Qalam invites you to take part in the Tell Your Story Contest! The grand prize is an absolutely incredible 1,500,000 tenge!
Why Does Oral History Matter?
Did you know that researchers believe that oral memory lasts about 100 years? So, by simply chatting with your parents or other older acquaintances, you can take a captivating journey back in time about a century! And any such conversation will make it amply clear that the past isn't just a bunch of dates or a boring list of ‘causes’ and ‘consequences’. It’s made up of the vibrant lives of people just like us—filled with desires, illusions, passions, enlightenments, highs, lows, and tragedies. You’ll also find that history isn't confined to major cities like St. Petersburg, Paris, London, or Moscow either—it surrounds you wherever you are.
One of the most intriguing ways to explore recent events, oral history is not just a tool for professional historians but also equally useful in literature and local history. Notable works like Professor Sergey Abashin's Soviet Village (2015) or the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich's series of books on war and Stalinist repression (winner of the Nobel prize in 2015) showcase the power of oral history. Remember, this way of history telling isn't just a method—it's an inclusive pathway accessible to everyone regardless of where you have an education in the subject. It echoes the time-honored tradition of Kazakhstan, where an understanding of seven generations of your paternal lineage (jeti ata) is considered essential knowledge.
The study of oral history received a boost after World War II, moving from mere folklore studies to a legitimate sub-field of history. Before this, historical research centered on either heroes (so-called outstanding personalities) or large masses of people (classes or nations). Today, the focus of historical research has shifted to the lives of individuals, their uniqueness, and everyday experiences. Scholars are now much more interested in the life of a particular person, exploring their emotions and motivations, than in impersonal constructs like ‘formations’, ‘peoples’, or ‘civilizations’.
Thus, oral history has emerged as a powerful tool for making history accessible because it provides an immediate and personal connection to the past through first-hand accounts and stories. The spoken word breaks down barriers and allows for a more comprehensive and empathetic understanding of historical events, ensuring that different voices and perspectives ring down the generations.
With this contest, we want to involve our readers in the process of recording history from across nations, especially in small and distant places. We want to help close the divide between these places and cities, which have well-equipped libraries and archives. We want to encourage non-professional historians to write stories about people and places that might otherwise be overlooked and unheard.
At Qalam, we want to fuel your love and interest in your family, city, village, and country. So participate in the Qalam Tell Your Story Contest and let your voice become the vibrant thread weaving together our shared narratives!
Contest Rules
We invite independent researchers from Kazakhstan aged 12 to 25 to participate in the contest.
The best entries will be showcased on the Qalam website. Along with an opportunity to have your story heard, the prizes come with impressive cash rewards:
First place: 1,500,000 tenge
Second place: 1,000,000 tenge
Third place: 500,000 tenge
What Is Oral History?
The formal concept of ‘oral history’ took shape in the mid-twentieth century, though the practice existed long before then. You see, even ancient authors often incorporated eyewitness accounts of various events into their texts, diligently preserving what was said by those present. Without oral stories, which are really human memories, the development of fields like ethnography and folklore would be unimaginable. Collectors of folk tales, myths, songs, and rituals have always worked ‘in the field’, journeying to the most remote corners of the world to record stories imbued in collective memory.
On the other hand, though, classical historians have long favored working with documents—books, letters, drawings—partly because oral history typically delves into the lives of two or three generations at the most, and they were usually interested in more ancient and intricately detailed events.
However, around the 1940s and ’50s, this perspective changed. The pace of life in general accelerated, information began to spread faster, and people became more intrigued by events of the very recent past, wanting to discover more details. They sought to understand what their grandparents ate as young people, how they dressed, and what dreams filled their thoughts. In the whirlwinds of political upheavals and dramatic shifts in fashion, morals, and behavioral norms, events from fifty years ago began to feel like deep antiquity—or a time when everything was entirely different. And thus, today, ‘oral history’ has become a respected offshoot of mainstream historical science.
HOW TO CREATE MATERIAL ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF ORAL HISTORY
Narrow down on your topic before you do anything else. This is crucial while avoiding ending up with a pile of loosely connected notes instead of logically structured material. While choosing a topic like ‘Ten Stories about Everything in the World, as Told by My Grandfather’ is a valid approach, such a work would probably be a much longer piece than required for this competition. Therefore, we recommend choosing a specific theme and focussing on it.
What topics could there be?
While selecting an interesting research theme, you could think of the following subjects.
Family History
This could be a narrative about everyday life in your family, detailing household routines, habits, and traditions. Each family has its own ways of preserving memories—some have photo albums, videos, diaries, letters, awards, and documents, while others enjoy reminiscing about the childhoods of their grandparents, parents, and other relatives around the dinner table. Often, families preserve holiday ornaments from past generations or books from their ancestors’ libraries. If these collections are significant, you could share relatives’ oral recollections and stories about these items.
Local History
You could also delve deeply into the history of a mosque or church, home, street, neighborhood, hometown school or daycare center, museum, concert hall, even a hospital or sports complex through oral testimonies that surround it. This could be located in the town you grew up in or a place your family has a long-standing connection with—it could even be something you've just heard about and find interesting and worth sharing, even if you don't have a personal connection of your own. You could also cover unique places: museum exhibits, memorials, walls of graffiti painted over by generations—anything that preserves human memory. This story could be complemented with archival documents and/or photographs.
People in the Midst of Historical Events
The twentieth century is full of events of truly huge proportions—civil and world wars, revolutions, migrations, massive construction projects, and ideas like the Virgin Lands campaign—all of which touched specific human destinies. Consider how your family experienced such events in the past. Perhaps you could talk to representatives of different nationalities and religions among your neighbors to see how and why they settled in this location. What is the local attitude toward these individuals? And what are the roots of these attitudes?
What format should I choose to work in? And what are the requirements?
We offer three formats to choose from: text, audio, and video.
1. Text: We welcome electronic submissions of up to 30,000 characters (including spaces). To add diversity and depth to your narrative, include archival photos, drawings, scans of documents, and letters. If you incorporate such materials, be sure to provide explanations for each one.
2. Audio: If you've accumulated sufficient voice recordings, you can transform them into a full-fledged audio story using audio editing software or apps. Remember, editing is a dramatic tool. Don't hesitate to add musical interludes and background sounds and experiment with the storytelling sequence.
3. Video: You can submit a video clip up to thirty minutes long. Think of it as if you were making a podcast—you could make a short documentary using various editing tricks. Mix in old videos, your clips, and interview recordings. Be the storyteller, spinning history through your own eyes, just like you would in a podcast.
What can't be missed?
Even if you are creating a textual piece, it’s still useful for your reference (though we don’t need you to submit this) to record the stories on a voice recorder (available on any smartphone). It's crucial to convey the ‘eyewitness testimonies’ as close to the original as possible. Good etiquette suggests obtaining permission from the interviewee to allow recording. A simple statement at the beginning or in writing, saying, ‘I, [name], permit [your name] to use my interview in their article (audio or film)’ is sufficient. Keep all recordings to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations later.
Remember the logical structure of your material while developing your entry. For example, begin with an introduction where you discuss the goal you set for yourself, followed by questions and answers. If you have gathered other materials on the topic (photos, documents, artifacts, et cetera), try to use them to complement your interviews. Finally, summarize your research. This is possibly the simplest and most effective workflow process to create your entry, but you can certainly come up with your own.
Submit your entries to our contest at [email protected] with the subject line: For the Tell Your Story Contest. Submissions may be in Kazakh, Russian, or English.
We are accepting entries starting today and will continue until the 30th of June 2024.