The "Undying Memory of the War" project joined together Russian regions

About 30 Russian regions and more than 600 cultural institutions participated on the 22nd of June on the Day of Memory and Grief, in the "Undying Memory of the War" historical and patriotic project. The Presidential Library in cooperation jointly with the Volgograd Regional Universal Scientific Library named after M. Gorky organized the event.

First, representatives of the regions participated in the videoconference entitled the “Devotion to Homeland is a Source of Bravery and Commitment of its Defenders,” and then held a home based activities on their own territories.

During the conference were featured the reports about “The Brest Hero-Fortress” War Memorial Complex, combat and labor feats of the young Kursk residents, Sevastopol during its occupation of the German-Romanian forces in the 1942-1944 years based on the publications in the “Voice of Crimea” newspaper of the Simferopol City Council and others.

One of the key reports of the conference was a note concerning the electronic copies of the posters of the Great Patriotic War period from in the Presidential Library stock. The Library of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts and the State Universal Scientific Library of Krasnoyarsk Territory once handed more than 370 posters issued in different cities of the Soviet Union to the Presidential Library.

From the first, the most difficult, year of war posters strengthen the belief in fighting spirit of the Soviet soldiers. Posters of this period can be compared with a threatening weapon, which is due to a witness and precise imagery fought with the enemy too in this the most severe of the wars. A poster sketch, expressed the feelings of all the people - anger, hatred, contempt for the enemy - was created on the first day of the war. Its authors were Kukryniksy - creative team of Soviet graphic artists and painters. On June 22 this destined to become the first during the war poster was complete and appealed: “Ruthlessly defeat and destroy the enemy!”

Among the works of Kukryniksy, which are presented on the Presidential Library website, there is another equally rare 1941-year’s poster: “Cannibal-vegetarian” or “Two sides of the same coin.” Cartoon artists reached an extraordinary sharpness and sarcasm portraying Hitler on this sheet. The illustration plot is based on a well-known fact about the Fuhrer’s commitment to vegetarianism. The poster consists of two parts, symbolizing the two sides of the coin. One depicts the Fuhrer, patting a sheep, while on the other - he just shot a woman.

Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War posters appeal became the means by which it was possible to bring people together immediately, to show the importance of this or that phenomenon of battlefield life.

These and other publications of propaganda nature are available on the Presidential Library website in the Memory of the Great Victory collection. Today, more than 22 thousand of materials related to the war of 1941-194 are accessible for all concerned. Among them are official documents, photographs and newsreels, wartime newspapers, books, materials of agitation and propaganda character, evidences of partakers of military engagements and home front workers, the images of their personal documents, military and labor awards, monuments and memorials, as well as the feedbacks to war phenomenon of veterans’ grandchildren.

Many participants joined the event from remote centers of access to the resources of the Presidential Library in Volgograd, Brest, Kursk, Saratov, Moscow Oblast, Sevastopol and other regions of our country in a videoconference mode.