The Presidential Library presents collections dedicated to the Great Patriotic War

"It is customary to say that the war left a deep mark on the history of every family. Behind these words are the fates of millions of people, their suffering and the pain of loss. Pride, truth and memory," says the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in his article 75 years of the Great Victory: Shared Responsibility to History and our Future. "It is fundamentally important to rely only on archival materials, evidence of contemporaries, to exclude any ideological and politicized speculation," the Head of State says. He highlights, that for our country and the whole world it is important to analize the causes that led to the world war, reflect on its complex events, tragedies and victories.

The full content of the article by the President of the Russian Federation can be found in the electronic collection Memory of the Great Victory, presented on the portal of the Presidential Library. The collection includes official documents, photo and newsreels, wartime newspapers, books, publications of an agitation and propaganda nature, collections of articles, biographies, testimonies of participants in battles and home front workers, their personal documents, images of military and labor awards, monuments and memorial complexes.

The Collection of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials World War II in archival documents is posted and constantly updated on the portal of the Presidential Library. In accordance with the List of instructions for the implementation of the Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation dated January 15, 2020, the organizers of the Collection of Digitized Archival Documents, Film and Photo Materials "World War II in Archival Documents" are the Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv), the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Library.

The Collection is carried out by Rosarkhiv and federal state archives with the participation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the state archives of Belarus and others.

To date, the volume of the Collection is over 12 thousand materials: maps, diagrams, periodicals, photographs, newsreels for the period from January 1933 to December 1944.

Especially for the foreign audience, the titles and annotations to the documents as well as the texts of the accompanying articles are also available in English. In addition to digitized archival documents the Collection contains a list of the main Internet projects, databases, other thematic online documents, virtual tours of the history of World War II, developed by government agencies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and various organizations.

"We will take revenge for our city, / The Great creation of Petr the First, / For the inhabitants who were left homeless, / for the Hermitage, silent as a tomb..." This is an excerpt from the poem "Pulkovo Meridian" by Vera Inber. The collection of her poems The Soul of Leningrad was included in a separate electronic collection Defence and Siege of Leningrad. It includes several sections. In the Sources section, you can get acquainted with official documents, cards, leaflets, memos; read periodicals telling about the besieged city; view postcards, photos and newsreels. A special place in this section of the collection is occupied by memoirs, diaries and materials from the personal archives of Leningrad residents. In the section Researches. Fiction. Video Materials documentary prose, journalism, essays are collected. The section Memory of the siege presents monuments and awards.

The Presidential Library pays great attention to preserve the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War and countering the falsification of history. Collections are constantly updated with new documents. They are available on the Library's portal from anywhere in the world.