The electronic exhibition of the Presidential Library illustrates the Great Patriotic War in the context of the Second World War

The Presidential Library presents the multimedia exhibition “The Great Patriotic War, which determined the outcome of the Second World War. Marking the 75th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945”.

In 1945 in Karlhorst, a suburb of Berlin, the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany was signed. Thanks to unprecedented courage, at the cost of enormous efforts and sacrifices, the Soviet people and army defeated the troops of Germany and its allies, liberated the countries of Central and Eastern Europe from occupation and took Berlin - the capital of the “millennium” Third Reich, which had existed for 12 years.

But it is impossible to understand the causes and course of the Great Patriotic War outside the context of the Second World War, of which it was an integral part and the main event.

The virtual exposition covers the period from 1931 to 1945. More than 500 official documents, photographs, maps, periodicals and leaflets introduce the real course of military-political and diplomatic events of those years and give the user the opportunity to create their own idea of ​​the causes, beginning and course of the Great Patriotic War in the context of the events of the Second World War.

The materials of the multimedia exhibition are arranged in chronological order and, based on documents, represent year after year a sequence of events that determined the background, the beginning, the course and, finally, the end of the Second World War.

Each section of the exhibition is devoted to key events of a given period, presented by documents and detailed annotation. The user-friendly interface allows anyone to examine each document in detail.

The uniqueness of the exhibition is that its authors-compilers offer to look at the events of those years in a new way, namely to see in the events not individual military conflicts and political events, but a chain of interconnected historical realities. To draw for itself the very lesson of history, the knowledge and understanding of which will not allow the repetition of the terrible tragedy, whose name is World War II. The exhibition gives the viewer the opportunity to think about the role of even dramatic events of little importance from the ordinary point of view, which are essentially a link in the chain of a global conflict.

Professionally selected and conveniently located materials make it possible to read every document, leaving no room for distortion of historical facts, interpretation of what was happening from the angle of the political situation. The need for a true picture of the events of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War was reflected in amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the voting on which will take place in our country.

To create the exhibition, unique documents were used provided by the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of Russia, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library (USA), and the Chongqing Library (China). The materials from the collections of the Presidential Library and documents previously published in various Internet projects of the State Archive, the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence and the Russian Historical Society are also provided.