The Endless Letter on Instagram Stories RT
Task
“Endless Letter” is a unique graphic series featuring hundreds of excerpts from original WW2 front-line letters with illustrations created by young students of the Moscow RANEPA Design School as well as renowned artists Peter Bankov and Mikhail Sorkin. Emotional quotes from frontline missives were shared line-by-line in Stories creating a kind of "endless letter" with an original non-stop score by young Russian composer Max Makarychev.
Ideas and solutions
Between 1941 and 1945 over 10 billion letters were posted and delivered in the USSR. Ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Victory against Nazi Germany we have revealed a unique collection of 7,000 letters that were carefully preserved for decades in family archives. So we decided to give them a new read in the format of Instagram Stories. “Endless Letter” is an emotional bridge between today’s peace and the horrific times of war when, against all odds, people loved, dreamed, experienced faith and anxiety. With “Endless Letter” our objective was to link the generations by narrative and visual means, with hope that our contemporaries and descendants will understand why this page of history should never be repeated. This project is about the fate of an ordinary person. A soldier. A wife. A mother. A child. A father. It is a story of families who had to face such a horrid burden - a story about millions of people who lived and died during the second World War. One can only truly understand the full scale through emotional experience: through personal stories. And there is nothing more personal than letters. 500+ short quotes and accompanying illustrations are put together into a single Insta-stories narrative featuring 4-hour original music score. A specially composed soundtrack by Maxim Makarychev adds to the atmosphere of the “Endless Letter”. Together with the music and illustrations the letters’ phrases create a touching emotional effect. One can vividly imagine how authors of the letters missed their homes, worried for their mothers and fathers, desired to live and went to their death. In just several months of running, the project has got over 2 million views on Instagram, 100,000 post engagements, 30,000 subscribers and over 200 media mentions.
