Partnership TVR – Google to launch globally online exhibitions on Iron Curtain Fall

Cristina Blanaru Digital & Media, Media

Romanian State TV TVR and Google made a partnership to launch globally online exhibitions on Iron Curtain Fall, with images from TVR’s Archives from 1989 Romanian revolutions included in the exhibition present on Google Cultural Institute platform.

The partnership was made to launch an online collection to mark the close anniversary of 23 years since Berlin Wall fall. The collection is available on  Google Cultural Institute and includes a total of 13 exhibitions on events that generated the fall of Communist regimes in Germany, Poland and Romania.

The exhibitions were created by historians, museum curators and archive owners that used documents, video materials and photos on the events that took place in the 3 mentioned countries. There were also independent historians that contributed to the exhibitions, among which Niall Ferguson, renown History professor at Harvard University.

TVR – the 1st Google partner in Romania for this initiative – covers 4 of the 13 exhibitions. Users can access over 50 journalistic materials – video and text – together with photos from TVR’s Golden Archive. They illustrate a major event in Romania’s history, the 1989 Revolution. The selected materials offer a chronological image of Romanian Revolution, starting with the moment of Timisoara protest against the eviction of the reformist pastor Laszlo Tokes until the process and execution of Ceausescu couple (Nicolae and Elena).

The collections where TVR Archive materials are included in are:

  • Timisoara, the 1st free city – exhibition focusing on the start of popular revolt against Nicolae Ceausescu and Communist regime. The collection includes the story of the protest against the eviction of the pastor Laszlo Tokes and offers details on the 2 days of protests in the 1st Romanian city that opposed the regime
  • Bucharest, City of Victory – protests on December 21-22 1989, when a “popular meeting” transforms in a revolution against the regime and the dictator is forced to flee with a helicopter while the people occupy the building of Central Committee
  • Romanian revolution live – the main moments of the first live broadcasted revolution. The video materials include different announcements, rumors, terrorism accusations and illustrate the atmosphere and tension during those moments
  • The process and execution – includes a collection of video images and texts on the arresting, prosecution and execution of the Ceausescu couple

Romanian TV has an exceptional thesaurus of images in its archives, images that capture pieces of history. TVR is the 1st TV in the world that broadcasted live a revolution (…) The partnership with Google offers us the possibility to make this thing known beyond Romania’s borders. In the same time, through the virtual project available on Google Cultural Institute, we are welcoming the new trends in video consumption, more and more spread once with the diversification of content access platforms

Claudiu Saftoiu,

President Director General TVR.

Those exhibitions illustrate very clearly the importance of including archives in online. Each presents a different perspective on an important moment history and reminds us the reason for which the events in the past must be talked about in the future, from more points of view. Including the historic materials on the internet is not just susceptible to attract a new and global public, but also to keep those perspectives for the future generations

Steve Crossan

Head of Google Cultural Institute

The Iron Curtain Fall is the newest chapter in Google Cultural Institute, after the launch, last month, of the 42 online historic exhibitions presenting the stories of major events that happened during the last century.