Memory of the World: "Liberated Europe" exhibition project to launch in Saint-Petersburg

On April 2, 2021, the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO (Saint-Petersburg) will launch the "Liberated Europe" exhibition project. It marks the 76th anniversary of the Great Victory. The liberation mission of the Red Army covered 11 European countries with a population of about 113 million people. From March 1944 to May 1945, the Red Army conducted nine strategic offensive operations that brought freedom to Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Norway, and Denmark.

The "Liberated Europe" exhibition project presents pictures of military photographers. It is a photo chronicle that allows us, the descendants of the liberators, to revive the events of the last period of World War II when the Red Army not only struggled outside the Soviet Union but also solved humanitarian problems of the liberated European territories: restored the infrastructure, organized the supplies, provided medical care, freed prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, helped to recover a peaceful life. Special attention is paid to photographs depicting citizens of European countries meeting Soviet soldiers. The project displays the joint actions of the Red Army and the Allies in the Anti-Hitler Coalition (meeting on the Elbe) and the Nuremberg Trials. A separate exhibition hall highlights events on the island of Bornholm in Denmark.

The exhibition project features 150 unique photographs by famous Soviet photographers: E. Khaldei, E. Evzerikhin, G. Zelma, S. Gurariy, M. Trakhman, E. Kopyt, V. Grebnev, V. Temin, R. Diament, I. Shagin, A. Ditlov, B. Villashev, B. Losin, B. Pushkin, L. Dorensky. The exposition also includes photographs of unknown front-line photojournalists. Together with the Red Army, they passed the roads of Europe, liberating country after country. Soviet front-line photojournalists left impressive images of spring joyful Europe, liberated from the horrors of Nazism and starting a new peaceful life. Besides photographs from the ROSPHOTO collections, the "Liberated Europe" project includes images from the collections of the Russian State Archives of Film and Photo Documents (Krasnogorsk) and the Bornholm Museum (Denmark), as well as pictures and items provided by the Military Medical Museum.

Especially for the exhibition project, actors of the Saint-Petersburg State Theatre "Masterskaya" Arseny Semyonov and Sergei Intyakov recorded audio stories based on the memoirs of war participants. Audio stories will be available on the Izi.Travel platform.

The exhibition will run until May 23, 2021.