A dual exhibition of the Presidential and the Chongqing libraries opened in China

A joint exhibition of the Chongqing and the Presidential libraries entitled “Shared Memories. Photo exhibition of the Chinese and the Soviet shots from the Second World War” opened on October 18, 2016, in Chongqing - the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Chongqing Library was founded in 1947 and is the largest cross-disciplinary public library in China. Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Administration of Chongqing, Mr. Wang Hao, director of the Chongqing Library, professor Ren Jing, other officials of the regional administration, and the Presidential Library representatives attended an official opening ceremony. The exhibition in the demonstration halls of Chongqing Library will run until November 20, 2016.

An exposition is based on selected by the Chinese experts documentary photographs depicting the events of Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, which was an integral part of the Second World War. It also included provided by the Presidential Library photographs capturing the key events of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), and the Soviet-Japanese (August-September 1945) wars. Exclusively for this exhibition, requested by the Presidential Library, staff Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation provided copies of unique documents that reveal very important, but yet little exposed to the wide public, pages of the history of Sino-Soviet relations during the Second World War. Owing to these documents, the visitors will get acquainted with various aspects of the military-political and economic cooperation between the two countries. For example, with the contracts during 1937-1939, provided the most favorable handling of trade between the USSR and China, the provision of loans and the supply of armaments, the establishment of regular air communication and the joint Sino-Soviet airlines. It should be noted that in the 1937-1939 years USSR put China 985 aircraft and more than 1,300 gunneries.

The exhibition guests will also get acquainted with the diplomatic notes about the Soviet instructors in the aviation school in Ghulja (Yining / Gulja / Qulja, formerly known as Ili and Kulja) in 1940. There were about 5,000 Soviet military specialists in China by 1942.

A number of diplomatic documents disclose the joint activities of the USSR and China in shaping the postwar world pattern - for example, the Declaration on the issue of global security in 1943, the agreement on the Far East in 1945. The exhibition also displays the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between the USSR and the Republic of China of August 14, 1945, in which the countries pledged to wage the war with Japan to a victorious end, and in where China's sovereignty over Manchuria and Xinjiang was confirmed.

The documents related to Soviet-Japanese War in August 1945 presented as well - the statement of the Soviet government to declare war on Japan on August 8 and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender of September 2, 1945.

The exhibition has become one of the memorable projects in the framework of the signed in 2014 agreement between the Presidential and the Chongqing libraries. In the past, in 2015, the exhibition, a part of which was arranged basing on unique materials from the collections of Chongqing library, was organized in the Presidential Library towards the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

After the opening of the exhibition the sides discussed plans for further cooperation. Among the discussed events are a joint exhibition to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union in 2019, the projects in the field of translation and the documentary movies production, and a further interaction in an electronic environment.