The Presidential Library marking the anniversary of the Great Victory

May 9 - Victory Day, a holiday of unprecedented feat of our people, which unites the hearts of generations. We will always remember those who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, worked in the rear, restored the country in the post-war period, showing courage and heroism.

The Presidential Library on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War announced the start of preparations for the next anniversary date. “Our activity is aimed at preserving the history of our country, the feat of our people. We are doing everything to ensure that this story is based on facts, documents that do not allow different interpretations of historical events. The Presidential Library, together with the student press center, with the support of our media friends, is launching a new project dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. It will be called “Victory 75””, - said Valentin Sidorin, Deputy Director General of the Presidential Library.

As part of the campaign, with the help of an extensive interregional network of remote access centers of the Presidential Library, of which there are about 1,000 in our country and abroad, events throughout Russia will be tracked to coincide with the significant date.

It is important to note that the Victory 75 project became a kind of logical continuation of the previous one, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege. It was launched at the end of 2018. Volunteers from among the students and schoolchildren of St. Petersburg prepared photo, video and audio materials, whose heroes were residents of the besieged city on the Neva, as well as their descendants. These materials are planned to be placed in the collections of the Presidential Library - the largest national digital repository of documents on the history of the Fatherland and Russian statehood.

In addition, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the siege coincided with the joint campaign of the Presidential Library, the newspaper Petersburg Diary and Radio Rossiya - St. Petersburg. More than 250 people shared their memories, diaries and photographs about that time. They transferred about 3000 documents for digitization. It is thanks to them that one can learn in detail how the city survived in the enemy’s dense ring, how civilians and the military managed to defend it, showing surprising heroism and unbending will every day. Now the received documents are being digitized enriching the large electronic collection “Defence and Siege of Leningrad”, which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

The project "Victory 75" is designed to collect a lot of new materials that will be included in one of the most major digital collections of the Presidential Library "Memory of the Great Victory".

“This is a great resource that we plan to use to maximize coverage of events related to the siege, war, heroism of our ancestors”, - said Valentin Sidorin.

The collection "The Memory of the Great Victory" today numbers more than 23 thousand units of storage, and it is constantly expanding due to new materials.

“The digital collection “The Memory of the Great Victory” is a priority for our institution, the main mission of which is to preserve the cultural and historical heritage of Russia and to ensure the access of many users to primary sources - memory carriers. Letters and diaries, memories, photographs, and many other documents related to historical events find their place in our electronic collections”, - said Elena Zhabko, director for information resources of the Presidential Library.

For the convenience of users and detailed study the materials of the collection are divided according to the thematic principle. Thus, the “Anti-Hitler Coalition” section reveals the main stages of interaction between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain during the Second World War. Special attention is paid to the international conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945). On this topic in the section you can find copies of rare photographs, declarations, protocols.

The section “The power of Russian weapons: military operations during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945” contains materials on the largest battles on different fronts: the defence of Leningrad, the Battle of Moscow, the liberation of Sevastopol, the Battle of Stalingrad and Kursk, the battle for Berlin. Here are also collected documents on the actions of individual branches of the armed forces and documentaries made in our days.

Of particular interest is the section of the collection "Defenders of the Fatherland" and, in particular, its subsection "Living Memory". It features digital recordings of fragments of interviews of war veterans, documents from personal archives, including letters from the front.