Historical investigations of Rodina magazine and the Presidential Library to be carried on

In view of Rodina magazine’s 140th birthday the Presidential Library and the publication are going to hold events that will cast light on little-known or forgotten pages in the chronicle of the Russian state. The announcement was made at the meeting of Rodina magazine’s Historical Club, which was held in Rossiyskaya Gazeta Media Center on March 14, 2019.

Plans for the year 2019 include readings of Rodina issues focused on significant events on the country's historical calendar. Magazine’s authors and the Presidential Library will take part in a video conference dedicated to the 365th anniversary of the reunion of Russia and Ukraine, which will be of particular interest. What is more, the materials that will remind readers of the common history of two fraternal nations and reveal the meaning of words ‘Kievan Rus’ will be published in the magazine all through the year 2019.

The State Hermitage Museum will take part in “The Attribution of Russian Portrait” video conference, which will be held in the Presidential Library. The discussion will be based on the numerous investigations conducted in this field by Semyon Ekshtut, PhD, leading analyst of Rodina magazine.

The June issue of Rodina magazine will spotlight Alexander Pushkin’s 220th anniversary of birth. For this reason many researchers of the poet’s life and oeuvre will gather in St. Petersburg.

Valentin Sidorin, Deputy Director General of the Presidential Library, member of Rodina magazine’s Historical Club, noted that the Presidential Library had been cooperating with the magazine for a long time - for over 6 years. In December 2016 the library and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which publishes the magazine, signed an agreement on cooperation in the coverage of topical events in the national history. As a result there were joint publications and exhibitions, while the video conferences gave impetus to new publications.

There is a variety of topics raised at presentations of new issues of Rodina magazine. Main characters of Rodina magazine in October 2018 were rescuers: those ones who took part in the rescue operation after the devastating earthquake in Spitak 30 years ago, the crew of the large freezer trawler Mys Senyavina, who in the midst of the Cold War saved American military aviators in the stormy Sea of Okhotsk; Sergey Gritsevets - I-16 fighter pilot, who at the very beginning of the Soviet-Japanese conflict on the Khalkhin-Gol landed behind enemy lines to save his comrade, and many other famous and unknown heroes.

One of the large-scale events of 2018 was a videoconference in the Presidential Library, which was dedicated to dacha life as an element of mass culture. It brought together publication’s authors, historians, representatives of cultural institutions of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region. Participants from Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Yalta, Volgograd etc. watched the private broadcast on the library’s portal.

A “light” theme, as it might seem, highlighted a variety of events from the country life of famous historical figures. These traditional meetings are becoming a source of new materials, which enter Rodina’s editorial portfolio.

Electronic copies of Rodina magazine are available in the Presidential Library’s collections. Readers, particularly researchers and Russian history lovers, as well as journalists, philosophers, and art historians show great interest in it.