Method

One of the core arguments of this project is that its architecture is as important as its content. Beautiful Spaces explores the history of Crimea by documenting a few small sections of the dense fabric of relationships among people, places, documents, and ideas that constituted this prized corner of Russia's southern empire. It isolates each thread and each pattern. It articulates the texture of the historical record and insists that preserving that texture is a necessary, revelatory, and pleasurable part of the historian's craft.

The organizing principles of the project, and of the method used to produce it, are CONNECTIVITYCURATION, LOCATION, and NARRATION. The emphasis on the process of discovery - both my own, and yours - is intentional. The emphasis on flexibility is intentional, too. There is no single recommended trajectory through the site. If I've accomplished what I meant to accomplish, you can dig in at the ground level by scrolling through Items and wandering the subterranian corridors that connect them. If you prefer, you can begin with the treetop-view provided by the narrations, descending and ascending through collections, relations, and mappings. (Truth be told, that is where the significance of this project lies - in the middle ground, or intermediate phases of analysis, rife as they are with inchoate ideas.)

There are precious few dead ends in Beautiful Spaces. If and when you find one, know that its existence is not evidence of the isolated nature of particular person or place, but rather a humbling testimony of the limitations of this project and its author.