World history: Unique materials are presented at the exhibition “The First World War” in Yelabuga

September 3, 2014 in the Exhibition hall of the Yelabuga State Museum-Reserve (Republic of Tatarstan) is opened the exhibition “The First World War”. This is a joint project of the State Historical Museum (Moscow) and the Yelabuga State Museum-Reserve.

The main purpose of the project is the restoration of the historical memory about the war, which in Russia is now called “forgotten”.

The exhibition features electronic copies of photographs, documents, maps, posters, drawings of contemporaries, postcards, autographs of the First World War.

The exhibits, matched for chronological and thematic approaches, cover the period beginning shortly before the hostilities and ending 1918. They tell of battles, heroes, life in the front, political mood, charity and other realities of that Russian reality.

Among rare publications before the war is presented a map of “What Germany wants” and “Map of the future Europe, which William “King of Europe” did not see”. These maps indicate serious geopolitical ambitions of Germany and Russia at the beginning of the war.

In addition to the exhibition features patriotic, charitable and satirical posters, which are stored in the State Historical Museum. They clearly indicate the wave of military and political propaganda that swept Russia in 1914 and sharply subsided by the beginning of 1915, as well as broad and diverse charitable activities of various public organizations during the war.

Of great interest are drawings of team of artists working in the theater of war in 1914-1917. By hands of front-line artists was established as a portrait gallery of famous Knights of St. George, most of which is stored in the State Historical Museum.

Lovely documentary evidence of the era are letters from the front, a letter from the German prisoner of war camps, as well as essays, written by students on the subject of war and the February Revolution.

Facsimile abdication of the emperor, signed March 2, 1917 at 15 hours and 5 minutes in Pskov, sums up the important milestone of the last war of the Russian Empire.

Final Document of the exhibition is the map the Treaty of Brest, reflecting the territorial losses of Russia, followed it out of the war and the conclusion of a separate treaty with the military-political bloc of the Central Powers.