President of Russia’s Article about World War II is available in the Presidential Library’s digital collection

The Presidential Library’s digital collection features an article by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin “75th Anniversary of the Great Victory: Shared Responsibility to History and our Future” published on Kremlin.ru on June 19, 2020. The article is available on the information resource that represents the first part of the complex of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials “The Second World War in Archival Documents” in the collection “Memory of the Great Victory”.

Vladimir Putin first said about his intention to write an article on the anniversary of the Victory on December 19, 2019 at a large annual press conference. On December 20 at an informal meeting of the heads of state of the CIS, which was held at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library of the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, told the meeting about the raised archival materials relating to the history of World War II, and invited to visit the specially organized exhibition “1939. The Beginning of the Second World War”.

Some of the documents that the President of Russia spoke about are provided on the Presidential Library’s portal, where, in accordance with the List of Instructions for the implementation of the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on January 15, 2020, a unique information resource, representing the first part of a set of digitized archive documents, film and photographs “The Second World War in Archival Documents” (https://www.prlib.ru/collections/ww2-in-archival-documents) has been launched.

The project has been organized by the State Russian Archive, the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation and the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library.

The State Russian Archive with the participation of the archival services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Ministry of Defence of Russia, the Federal Security of Russia and the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, organized (based on domestic, captured and foreign archival funds) the digitization of documents spotlighting the history of the Second World War, its course and results. The materials will be posted on the Presidential Library’s portal for several years.

The first part of the complex is dedicated to the prehistory of World War II and covers the period from January 1933 to August 31, 1939. It includes more than 1700 archival documents, photographs, and newsreel fragments; almost half of them are published for the first time. The resource has been organized according to the chronological principle. The documents are grouped by year (from 1933 to 1939).

A set of digitized archival documents on the history of World War II and the pre-war period, according to the Russian State Archive, will be created by 2024.