Hanna Horn

Life Writing ByNet: (Auto-)biographical Motives in Digital Dictatorship

The present PhD project analyses life writing on ByNet (Belarusian sector of the Internet) both as literary fact and historical document. Before and after the announcement of the presidential election’s rigged results in 2020 the civil movement took over a wide range of social groups in Belarus. The most massive protests in the history of the country’s independency were almost immediately followed by the unprecedented volume of state violence.

One of the repressions’ dimensions is the surveillance online, limitation of the Internet access and politically motivated administrative and criminal cases, based on (re)posts, likes and messages online. Nonetheless, no social networking sites are completely blocked in the country, which makes them a valuable and fruitful source of Belarusian reality’s documentation.

The central aim of the research is to trace the historical development of Internet auto/biographical writing in the given context, to establish its key motives and features, and to identify the determining factors for its formation. It also aims to investigate the variations of digital subjectivity, (self-)censorship and their interconnectedness to autobiographical pact. For the moment, I rely on two main methods of non-commercial digital archiving: web scraping and counter-archiving. I follow the four-stage methodology proposed by A. Morrison: Explore and Engage; Categorise; Select; and Interpret. Event-based and autobiographical traditions of web archiving (R. Rogers) are considered to be primary regimes in this project.

At the moment, I’m focused on the life writing motifs and strategies of four authors: A. Bacharevič, M. Martysievič, D. Strocev and T. Zamirovskaya. Differences in their literary approaches, types of social media chronicles, different countries of residence and different preferred languages of writing (Belarusian, Russian or English) make the given selection productive.

• “Passive security system at work. Visit to the Lubmin Nuclear Power Plant,” [blog] Baltic Peripeties Blog, October 14, 2024, https://peripeties.uni-greifswald.de/visit-lubmin-npp/.

• “Narrating the Migrant Self in Digital Life Writing: On the Example of Tatsiana Zamirovskaya’s Digital Life Writing,” interdisciplinary autumn seminar for PhD researchers Narrare, Tampere University [online], November 8, 2024.
• “Close Reading of Evocative Objects in the Inter-imperial Space of Digital Life Writing. On the Example of Tatsiana Zamirovskaya’s Digital Life Writing,” fünfte interdisziplinäre Jahrestagung des Forschungsschwerpunktes digitale Kultur Tausend Plattformen: Plattformforschung nach dem Digital Services Act, FernUniversität in Hagen, Berlin Campus, November 7-8, 2024.
• “Emigration as Death-like Experience: On the Example of Tatsiana Zamirovskaya’s Digital Life Writing,” the 7th international death online research symposium Digital Death – Transforming History, Rituals, and Afterlife, University of Helsinki [online], October 3-5, 2024.
• Participation in the CBEES Summer School The Return of History: Memory, War and the End of the “Post”, organised by the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn University, Sigtuna, August 12-17, 2024.
• “Post-revolutionary Hope. On the Example of Facebook Prose by Tatsiana Zamirovskaya,” workshop Autobiography, Digitality & Platformisation, FernUniversität in Hagen, Berlin Campus, May 30-31, 2024.
• “Life Writing ByNet: (Auto-)biographical Motives in Digital Dictatorship,” international workshop Resonant Conflicts. Turning Points in the Baltic Sea Region, organised by the IRTG Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes, Department for Language and Literature, NTNU Trondheim, May 22-24, 2024.
• “The Motifs of Emigration and Nostalgia in Facebook Prose by Tatsiana Zamirouskaya,” Graduate Student Conference in Russian Language and
  Literatures (Helsinki — Tallinn — Tartu), University of Tartu, May 10-12, 2024.
• “The Motifs of Emigration and Nostalgia in Facebook Prose by Tatsiana Zamirouskaya,” 9th Annual ‘Belarusian Studies in the 21st Century’ Conference, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Ostrogorski Centre, Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum, University College London [online], April 26-27, 2024.
• Pecha-Kucha Night with young researchers, ZOiS Annual Conference Paradigms in Times of War: Unpacking Research and Policy Challenges, Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien (ZOiS), Berlin, November 16-17, 2023.
• Workshop A Short History of Digital Publics at War, FernUniversität in Hagen, Berlin Campus, May 2-3, 2023.