World History: The Unique First World War Posters Exhibition in Kaliningrad

"The First World War in Posters" exhibition was opened with the support of the regional Ministry of Culture in Kaliningrad Regional Museum of History and Art. This exhibition is the first of a series of museum events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. These festivities will be particularly widely celebrated in 2014 in the Kaliningrad region - the only region of Russia, where the fighting took place at that time. The Battle of Gumbinnen (now Gusev Town in Kaliningrad region) on August 20, 1914, was the first battle on the Eastern Front of World War II. It ended with the victory of Russian troops and the departure of German units that had numerical superiority. The victory went to high price - thousands of soldiers and officers were left to rest forever in this land.

The First World War gave rise to a whole stratum of poster art among the participants in this large-scale military conflict. The exhibition, which presents the unique materials from the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, gives the opportunity to get acquainted with one of the most popular types of fine art with enormous emotional impact. During the First World War poster art produced a similar to a weapon effect: understandable and memorable images with powerful, calling for action slogans. A substance of poster graphics has a great variety, from maintaining the morale of the civilians, army and navy, imaging feats of arms, and inspiring the community involvement to help the front, to exposing insidious plans of the enemy and caricaturing its headquarter.