The history of Great Victory revealed in the periodicals of wartime

Under the previously signed agreement, the Presidential Library started digitizing the Ministry of Defense newspaper "Red Star". It is planned that by the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, May 9, 2015, the number of wartime periodicals will overpass 30,000. Today, the Presidential Library provides access to electronic copies of such newspapers as "Moscow Bolshevik", "Defending the Motherland", "Smena", "In the battle for the Motherland", "Battle Road" and other publications, including partisan; more than 18,000 periodicals of wartime have been digitized.

"The collection dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, is already one of the largest among those developed by our institution, and it continues to grow with periodicals, books, archival materials. Diaries and any documents related to particular people and their fates, which reveal human history, are quite important. We will continue to work on their classification, cooperating with museums, archives, individuals," said Director General of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin.

On the eve of June 22, the Day of Memory and Grief, the Presidential Library unveiled new arrivals: "Defending the Motherland" paper of June 23, 1941, where the article "Death to the enemy!" said: "This is an event that will go down in the world history as a symbol of international deceit, duplicity and treachery. When peaceful flourishing towns and villages of our country were sleeping to continue in the morning their heroic struggle for human happiness, Nazi planes dropped bombs on our people. It happened at the end of the night, the hour that the killers always chose for their bloody deeds. Long scroll of Nazi crimes increased by one more... We will remember the date of this cowardly attack: June 22, 1941."

Headlines of periodicals of June 1941 speak for themselves: "The Power and the truth is on our side", "Victory will be ours," "Enemy will be defeated," "Fascist snake will be crushed", "In the victorious Patriotic War the Red Army will defeat bloodthirsty fascist thieves"," Our cause is just - the enemy will be defeated."

In 1992, the day of June 22 was declared the Memorable Day of Fatherland Defenders; then, in 1996, Russian President Boris Yeltsin renamed the date to the Day of Memory and Grief. This day, national flags are lowered all over the country, entertainment events and programs are canceled.

The Presidential Library website provides free access to the collection "Memory of the Great Victory." It includes books, collections of articles, biographies, certificates of participants of battles and home front workers, comments on the war by their grandchildren, archival documents, photos and newsreels, newspapers of wartime and propaganda publications, songs and music of the war years.