History of St. Petersburg: Exhibition "Vivere Militare Est / To Live is to Fight" devoted to the medicine of besieged Leningrad to open

The exhibition "Vivere Militare Est / To Live is to Fight" will be opened on December 16, 2021, at the Museum "Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad". It is devoted to the medicine of besieged Leningrad and the Leningrad Front.

The temporary exposition presents items from the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg and the Military Medicine Museum. It showcases works of art, documents, photographs, medical instruments and devices, household items telling about the heroic labour of doctors and nurses, who saved the lives of the Red Army soldiers and residents of the besieged city.

The exposition features drawings by the graphic artist Viktor Slyshchenko with the author's comments. They present the atmosphere of the October 25 City Hospital (now the Alexandrovskaya Hospital). The artist was hospitalized there in early 1942.

Other art objects are rare Soviet medals of the 1970s and 1980s, devoted to the life of besieged Leningrad. They are plaster plaques depicting scenes of cold and starvation, moving around the city, mutual assistance in the streets, queues for bread and funerals.

Various drawings and illustrations from medical manuals and scientific papers published in the military Leningrad are the documentary evidence of medical activity of that time. This section provides the schemes and methods of evacuating the wounded from the battlefield and their distribution to hospitals.

An illustration of the work of Leningrad doctors and pharmaceutical scientists are treatments for combating starvation of city residents and frontline soldiers: glucose, vitamins and other medicines, the kits of medical instruments (including memorial items) and medical devices in hospitals. Doctors at the front and in the besieged city had extraordinary knowledge, energy and professionalism. Struggling for people's lives, they confirmed the ancient Latin phrase: "Vivere militare est" (To live is to fight).

The exhibition also presents works by Leningrad photojournalists, who captured scenes from the life of the besieged city.