Internet and history: The electronic version of photographs from the archive of the International Committee of the Red Cross

The electronic exhibition of photographs from the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is published at the website of the National Library of Russia as part of the developing cooperation, as part of the ICRC and the NLR cooperation and is timed to the First World War Centenary 1914-1918.

The collection includes more than 200 rare historical shots taken by photographers from different countries. Taken together, these frames create a large-scale picture of the activities of both the Committee and some National Societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the First World War.

The geography of the photo exposition is extensive and includes 20 countries: Austria, Azerbaijan, Algeria and the United Kingdom, Germany and Greece, Denmark and Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Romania and Serbia, the United States and Turkey, Ukraine and Finland, France and Japan.

It was during the First World War when the humanitarian role of the Red Cross, founded back in 1863, emerged in full force. The Red Cross primarily concentrated its efforts on helping prisoners of war, civilians and the repatriation of prisoners of war and refugees after the signing of the armistice in Compiegne.

The study with the materials of the exhibition allows us understanding why the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, the only during this period, was awarded to the International Red Cross.

The photos from the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are provided by the ICRC regional delegation in Russia, Belarus and Moldova.