Jožin z bažin and archaeological function of YouTube
One of the most popular video among polish internet users now is a czechoslovakian song from 1978 titled Jožin z bažin (eng. Joe from the bog).
English translation of the lirics one can find here. This song was showed even in the television news There are also many remixes of it available on YouTube.
Before, across the long time, this song was hardly known. Audience outside Czechoslovakia had no chance to hear it. Now, thanks to YouTube, czech comedian Ivan Mládek, author of the song, has became a real internet star. But this case has maybe not only entertainment context. YouTube again proved its archaeological function, making a dead cultural (historical) resource live again. This song have been put online without any role of historical or cultural institution, on the same principle as many archival videos (like for example this movie of Wrocław (Breslau) from the summer of 1939) or in the other way polish propaganda chronicles, showed over any official actual DVD distribution).
A communist war against the colorado beetle “dropped down by the USA air force” (1950)
The resources until now unavailable or available only in archives now can be independently digitalized and used online by everyone. Diffused archeology promote often unknown and rare sources, which in the tradition media had no chance to become visible.
Can this activity of internet users realised on the base of YouTube functionality be used in the aims of history education?
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Kategorie: Formy upamiętnienia / In english
Answerring the question: I think we, users, make the history. History is mostly a box of memories, micro-histories as well as individual experience forming collective framework. So Youtube can be a sort of visual tribune for those who don’t know, would know better or upload some sources to inform (or to persuade, like on this video for example:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LkKyJWGoEts)
Both movies you presented are great but struggle against collorado beetle is one of my favourites. Sooooo funny and sad in the same time…:/
About educational possibilities of YouTube. Hmmmm. First of all who knows what will happen to YouTube in few years. Now it’s still on the edge of crime… Will it survive battle against copyrigts owners..? We’ll see. I hope that it will, and CC licence will go popular, and every uncommercial use will be allowed. Youtube is great for cultural research but for historical I prefer more specialized sites (which are still only few but it’s getting beter everyyear) I dream about Internet (it don’t have to be even completely free) access to complete archives of Polish TV, Radio and Archive of Mechanical Documentation
[...] wpadł mi do głowy już dawno – na początku 2008 roku opublikowałem w HiM krótki tekst Jožin z bažin and archaeological function of YouTube, który stał się czymś w rodzaju notatki, przypominającej o konieczności rozwinięcia tego [...]