World History: "The First Global War. The Last Stand of the Russian Empire" exhibition in Moscow

On August 21, 2014, the State Historical Museum opens a large-scale international exhibition titled "The First Global War. The Last Stand of the Russian Empire" focused on the centenary of the First World War.

The main objective of this exhibition is to recollect the historical truth about the war, which was forgotten for many years in our country, and when it got a mention in history textbooks, generally referred to "imperialist".

The Historical Museum began to build a collection recounting the history of the First World War immediately after an outbreak of hostilities: the Current War Department of the museum was created by the August 1914. Subsequently, the museum funds were filled with the materials of war trophies commissions, the collections of the Military History and the History of Artillery Museums, the belongings, submitted by the families of war veterans, and the finds from the expeditions to battlefields’ sites. As a result, sufficiently large collection on the history of the First World War was gathered at the Historical Museum.

Among miraculously remained in the revolution exhibits are the items from regimental museums of the Russian Army, that witnessed the combat operations of famous Russian regiments - the Preobrazhensky Life Guard Regiment, the Finland Regiment, the 4th Infantry of the Imperial Family and other military units and military schools.

The exhibition displays the banners, weapons, military awards, field essentials, military maps, as well as the posters, pictures, documents and photographs.

The museum houses a collection of paintings created by a brigade of frontline artists during hostilities. There are both the action scenes and the portraits of Knights of St. George - the ranks beneath, officers and generals, including N. Yudenitch, M. Alekseev, G. Khan of Nakhichevan, and the Grand Duke Nicholay Nikolaevich.

Of a great value are the exhibits associated with the names of generals A. Brusilov, S. Vankov, A. Gutor, I. Dovbor-Musnitski. For the first time at the exhibition will be shown a uniform of the British Army Marshal, which belonged to Emperor Nicholas II and a complete kit of chief of the 27th Dragoon Regiment of King of Great Britain Edward VII.

The newsreel and documentary photographs will add to panorama of events that took place during the war. The massive surface of World War l will be clearly reconstructed by means of multimedia.

Many Russian and foreign museums and archives provided their materials for the exhibition at the Historical Museum: Imperial War Museum (London), the Army Museum (Paris), the Bavarian Army Museum (Ingolstadt), the Polytechnic Museum, the Putilov Plant Museum, the archives of the Historical Documents Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RF), State Archives of the Russian Federation, the State Archives of Film and Photo Documents, the Political Archive of German Foreign Ministry and others.