Internet and Culture: Russian Museum presents virtual exhibition “100 Years of the USSR”

The Russian Museum has launched an international intermuseum virtual exhibition 100 Years of the USSR.

December 30, 2022 marked the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet era, despite all its contradictions, represents an important experience of peaceful existence of different peoples on a vast territory. The State Russian Museum has taken the initiative to create an international intermuseum virtual exhibition, which was supported by 55 museums of Russia and CIS countries. Now, on the Virtual Russian Museum portal, one has an opportunity to see about a thousand works of painting, graphics, sculpture and applied art from the collections of 35 museums – from Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the east to Kaliningrad and Minsk in the west, from Murmansk to Salekhard in the north to Dushanbe and cities of Kazakhstan in the south. The exhibition continues to be updated. The main stage is scheduled to be completed by February 9, 2023, when the Russian Museum will host an online presentation of this large-scale intermuseum project.

The virtual exposition is divided into thematic sections that contain works on specific topics: family, childhood, work, sports, culture, holidays, industrialization, protection of the Fatherland, space, and other important spheres of life of Soviet society. Separate blocks are also devoted to Soviet design and architecture.

Each museum presented the life of its region (or republic) by showing both the most important historical events, including the All-Union construction projects – from the first hydroelectric power plants to the Baikal-Amur mainline, and its fellow countrymen, who transformed the USSR into an advanced industrial power in the most difficult conditions. A large number of portraits of people of creative work is an essential feature of the art of the Soviet era. This, among other things, is the result of the state policy in the field of culture, which through orders stimulated artists to create images of their contemporaries-workers. It is thanks to this that now, in the 21st century, we have a happy opportunity to see the faces of people of that era, full of dignity and confidence in the future, in the paintings of Soviet artists. They include metallurgists of Magnitogorsk and miners of Donbass, builders of KAMAZ and oil workers of the Caspian Sea, Stakhanovites and strikers of socialist labor, geologists and border guards, collective farmers and fishermen, athletes, teachers, doctors, engineers, outstanding figures of science and culture. Many works are dedicated to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, who gave their lives for peace in Soviet land, and, of course, the pride of the whole country – Soviet cosmonauts.

Most of the works are complemented with detailed annotations and biographies of artists.

Additional materials for the virtual exhibition include a virtual tour of the exhibition For the Happiness of the People, which was held at the Spanish branch of the Russian Museum in Malaga and displayed the best works of the 1930s-1950s from the collection of the Russian Museum.