The heroic and tragic history of the Navy in the Presidential Library

To the anniversary of the death of the Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea of the nuclear submarine “Kursk” during the exercises, the Presidential library has provided materials on the heroic history of the Russian Navy.  

The book by I. Kozlov “Red Banner Northern Fleet” is now available for readers of the library.  It tells the story of the origin and development of the domestic navigation in the northern seas, combat activity of the Flotilla of the Arctic Ocean during the Great Patriotic War, the creation of the Northern Fleet and its contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Many pages of the book are devoted to the history of polar fleet, which became eventually the ocean, nuclear missile, capable of performing combat missions in any latitude of the world ocean.   

The history of the Navy in addition to bright heroic episodes, unfortunately, is also filled with tragic moments. “No field of human activity does not require the attention and nowhere so quickly the results do not follow a fault or failure in things like the sea”. This is a quote from the book of L. Konkevich “Chronicle of wrecks and other disaster cases of warships of the Russian fleet”, which to this day is of particular significance. It was published in 1874 and brought together the history of the collapse of the military courts from 1853 to 1870 (the death of a military transport “Volga”, the crash of Frigate “Alexander Nevsky” and etc.) and a few accidents, which “are very instructive facts in regard to the sea”. “As far as the glorious deeds of the past can encourage imitating a virtue, so much knowledge accidents will save in similar circumstances”  as according to the author of the book, most of the fatalities occur because of a violation of any rules forgotten. The book includes a list of ships of the Russian Navy, the crash victims and other disasters from 1713 to 1869. 

Since its establishment the Presidential Library focuses on acquisition of its holdings on the history of the Russian Navy. Its holdings include books and papers covering the period of the formation and development of the domestic fleet of Peter’s time to the present day. Primary sources are widely available, which allow explore this or that phenomenon, draw your own conclusions, make discoveries. The original materials are often not available for a wide range of readers, but the electronic copies will solve this problem. For example, now it is being digitized rare albums and marine atlases, maps of the seabed and coast, issued in XVIII-XX centuries.

Every year in September the Presidential Library holds for professionals a nationwide Day of naval knowledge, where new research on the history of the formation and development of the Russian Navy is provided. It is planned that this year the naval conference will be held on September 3.