Presidential Library’s historical materials illustrate National Unity Day

On November 4, Russia celebrates one of the most important public holidays - National Unity Day. In 1612, militia troops led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky liberated Moscow from Polish invaders.

These events in detail are spotlighted on the Presidential Library’s portal. The collection Overcoming the Time of Troubles in Rus' includes documents and materials reflecting the state of the Moscow state on the eve and during the Troubles, the struggle of various political forces for the Moscow throne and the popular movement against the conquerors. Particular attention is paid to political, social and church figures of the Time of Troubles.

Materials from the Presidential Library’s collection The House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613 tell about the election of sixteen-year-old Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov to the Moscow throne. The proclamation of the young tsar not only marked the beginning of a new dynasty that replaced the Rurikovichs on the historical stage, but also summed up the Troubles.

The collection of publications Writings of Foreigners of the 17th Century is also of great interest. It contains materials that spotlight the views of European contemporaries on the events of those years in Russia.

The portal features such digitized rare documentary sources as Historical Acts, collected and published by the Archaeographic Commission (1841), an album of illustrations Antiquities of the Russian State, published by the highest command (1853).

The collection Persons of Russia includes a section dedicated to another hero of the Moscow events - Susanin Ivan Osipovich (?–1613); as well as materials about False Dmitry the Second (Tushinsky Thief). Historical research is collected in the book of a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, writer Pavel Lvov Pozharsky and Minin, Saviors of the Fatherland (1810), in the abstract of Alexander Molochnikov’s dissertation Smolensk Service Town in the Time of Troubles (2014) and others.

Fiction books on the subjects of “Trouble Age of Impostors” according to Professor V. O. Klyuchevsky, are presented in the anthology Russian History in Novels and Stories (1895).

In addition, thanks to the Presidential Library’s portal, one can take a video tour of the exhibition The Time of Troubles and Its Images in Russian Science and Culture, which was open in the library. The exhibition tells about the events and political figures of that time, the assessment of what happened in different historical periods, and the process of forming the historical memory of the Troubles.

The video lecture by Doctor of Historical Sciences Pavel Sedov Two Leaders of the Time of Troubles: False Dmitry I and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky (2018) is dedicated to a difficult historical period for Russia, which is available on the Presidential Library's portal worldwide.

National Unity Day has been celebrated in our country since 2005. It also is the Day of Military Glory of Russia.