Exhibition dedicated to 80th anniversary of complete liberation of Leningrad from Nazi Siege opened in Presidential Library of Administrative Directorate of President of Russian Federation

On May 27th, the day of the founding of St. Petersburg and the anniversary of the Russian Library, as well as the 15th birthday of the Presidential Library of the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, an exhibition called "Memory of Generations: The 80th Anniversary of the Relief of the Nazi Siege of Leningrad" was opened.

The exhibition was organized by the Russian Military Historical Society in collaboration with the Presidential Library. The opening of the exhibition was attended by Dmitry Kobitsky, Secretary General and Head of the Secretariat of the Council of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the States - participants of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Sergey Grinevich, Head of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Ovsienko, Deputy Head of the Administrative Directorate for Public Projects and Deputy Chairman of the Military Historical Society of Russia, Alexander Drozdenko, Governor of Leningrad Oblast, Yuri Nosov, Director General of Presidential Library, and Viktor Melnik, Prosecutor of Saint Petersburg, as well as other distinguished guests.

On the same day, the exhibition was attended by the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev; the Chairman of the United Russia political party, Vladimir Medinsky; the Assistant to the President of Russia, Andrey Turchak; the Deputy Managing Director of the Administrative Directorate of the President of Russian Federation, Olga Lyakina; the Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov; and the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Alexander Belsky.

The exhibition at the Presidential Library was opened on the 80th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from Nazi occupation. This event marked the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Second World War - the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted from 10 July 1941 until 9 August 1944. The main goal of the exhibition is to demonstrate, based on reliable historical materials, how people immediately after the relief of the siege perpetuated the memory of the feat of the city and its heroic defenders, how our contemporaries perceive events related to the liberation of besieged Leningrad.

On April 30, 1944, the first exhibition dedicated to the Siege of Leningrad was opened at the Salt Town complex in Leningrad. This exhibition was later transformed into the Leningrad Defence Museum. A few months later, on November 7, the Svirskaya Pobeda Museum opened in Lodeynoye Pole, Leningrad Region.

Despite the short lifespan of these museums, their memory lives on in the re-created Museum of Defence and Siege in Leningrad as well as the Lodeynopolsky Museum of Local History (a branch of the Museum Agency in Leningrad Region). The exhibition, for example, presents original works of art that were created specifically for the Svirskaya Pobeda exhibition. One such work is the first painting by future President of the USSR Academy of Arts, Boris Ugarov, entitled "Crossing the Artillery over the Svir River" (1944).At the exhibition, visitors can see a model of Salt Town, where the Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad is located, as well as photos of its creators and exhibits.

Research and materials represent the modern aspect of the exhibition from the Russian Military Historical Society and the Presidential Library.

The Russian Military Historical Society regularly hosts memorial events and engages in scientific activity, organizing conferences and initiating the publication of historical works. It also erects monuments to heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

The materials of the exhibition tell the story of a monument to the victims of Nazi genocide that was erected near Gatchina on the initiative of the society and opened on January 27th, 2024. Little-known documents on Nazi crimes and the latest historical research on the siege of Leningrad as genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union are available for visitors. Among the exhibits is a decision of the St Petersburg City Court on October 20th, 2022, recognizing the siege of Leningrad as a war crime and a crime against humanity. Preserving the memory of the heroes who fought during the siege of Leningrad is a top priority for the Presidential Library. In collaboration with Radio Rossiya and the Petersburg Diary newspaper, the Presidential Library has collected and digitized over four thousand documents from personal archives of Leningrad residents. These include siege diaries, letters, and memoirs. All of these materials are now available online on the Presidential Library's portal in the digital collections "Defence and Siege of Leningrad" and "Memory of Great Victory."

Recently, the Presidential Library digitized the "Children's Book of War. Diaries 1941-1945". This edition was donated to the collections by the editorial office of the newspaper Arguments and Facts. Now the book, which contains true testimonies of the war years, is available on the library's portal and is presented at the exposition.

The partners of the exhibition "Memory of Generations: The 80th Anniversary of the Relief of the Nazi Siege of Leningrad" are the Museum Agency of Leningrad Region, the State Memorial Museum of the Defence and Blockade of Leningrad, the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Communications Troops, the Prosecutor's Office of St. Petersburg, the Central Naval Library, the Gorky Scientific Library of St. Petersburg State University, the Svirsky Frontier search party.