Libmonster ID: KZ-2900
Author(s) of the publication: K. G. LEVYKIN

Historical and local history museums of our country have made their contribution to the ideological and moral and political cohesion of Soviet society, which is necessary to achieve victory in the Great Patriotic War. They were prepared for this task by all their previous work, the experience gained in the pre-war years of propagating the history of the peoples of the USSR among all strata of the working people, and the established methods and forms of organizing mass museum and educational activities. A very important role in the development of historical museums in the pre-war years and in turning them into centers of education and civic education of Soviet people was played by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) "On the teaching of civil history in schools of the USSR", adopted on May 16, 1934. Already on the eve of the war, groups of museum workers made significant progress in organizing historical expositions to highlight heroic themes in the history of our country, the revolutionary liberation movement, and the stages of building socialism. By this time, museums had the collections necessary for visual reconstruction of the most important phenomena of the historical past, the methodology of scientific acquisition and attribution of museum sources, the development of expositions was being improved.

The outbreak of war required a radical restructuring of the museum's work. The rescue of museum funds and their timely removal from the areas of the attack turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks in the work of cultural institutions. The evacuation of museum collections continued until the summer of 1942. Despite the heroic efforts of museum workers and the assistance of local authorities, not everything was taken out and saved. Many valuable collections of Belarus were completely lost. The museums of the Baltic Republics, Ukraine and Moldova were plundered by fascists.

The attention of historians studying the history of the Great Patriotic War is primarily drawn to the problems of restructuring the economy in a military way, and there is a gap in the historiography of the history of the labor feat of cultural workers. The work of cultural institutions is mainly represented by illustrative material about the professional and patriotic activities of certain masters or groups. Meanwhile, cultural institutions, including museums, faced a more responsible task-preserving the accumulated national heritage over the centuries, the loss of which cannot be compensated by any reconstruction or reproduction. Research and coverage of the activities of historical museum collectives aimed at saving collections and launching mass patriotic work is an urgent task. The urgent need to generalize the experience of museums in connection with increasing their role in the ideological and cultural life of modern society urgently requires the efforts of historians.

The study of the topic should begin with identifying the sources. Unfortunately, the material on the activities of the relevant central authorities was not concentrated in the State archives and did not receive the necessary processing. Even the documentary materials of the Museum and Local History Department of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR still remain in storage in the departmental archive of the Research Institute of Culture (formerly the Research Institute of Museology and Local Lore). All business correspondence of the department's functional divisions during the war years, reports, orders, and instructions were concentrated here. The Institute of Culture was and remains the main publisher of works on the history of museology in general and during the war in particular. These publications have been published in various non-periodical publications, collections of articles and documentaries. Some of them were published during the war years by the Department of Museology and Local Lore together with the Research Institute of Museum and Local Lore Work as collections of instructional guidance materials .1 These materials were sent to museums. Important information about the work of Soviet museums soder-

1 Series of issues " Work of political and educational institutions "(Moscow, 1943). The materials placed in them reflect the state of the museum business in 1941-1943.

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They are published in the magazine "Politprosvetrabota", central, regional and frontline newspapers.

The most promising opportunities in terms of identifying the forms and content of museums ' work during the war years are provided by the current archives of museums themselves. They are rarely used for research purposes, despite their availability. Very valuable information is provided, for example, by the documents of the custodial groups of the Department of accounting and storage of funds, annual reports and activity plans of the State Historical Museum (GIM), which reflect many aspects of the life of all historical museums of the country typical for that period.

On the third day after the outbreak of the war, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR issued an order to prepare for the evacuation of the most valuable collections in the museums of the republic. This work began first of all in the museums of the frontline zone, as well as in large cities that were at risk of bombing. The Evacuation Council, established under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, was responsible for the evacuation of museum valuables. By the decision of the Council, the museum collections were divided into three groups, according to their historical, scientific and artistic value. The most valuable exhibits of museums were to be exported to the interior of the country in the first place.

There is still no complete data on the amount of work done by museums during this crucial period. It is known that in the RSFSR in the first year of the war 66 museums from 41 cities were evacuated. It is possible that these data do not take into account all measures for the rescue and removal of museum valuables. Sometimes, depending on the situation at the front, it was necessary to carry out secondary evacuation measures from areas that were in danger of occupation or air raids.

The most valuable museum collections in Moscow and Leningrad were evacuated in July 1941. Many museums were evacuated in the immediate vicinity of the front, and sometimes under shelling and bombing. So, employees of Pskov museums packed up and took out valuable collections during the days of intense battles for Pskov. Correspondence of those days from Novgorod reported that "the city was already burning,.. when the last boxes with ancient manuscripts and Novgorod shrines were being transported on a barge along the Volkhov River"2 . It is known that, despite the complexity of the situation and huge losses, many museum valuables were taken out of Novgorod, among them the Magdeburg Gates, Byzantine and Limoges enamels, clothing and fabrics, church and civil utensils of the XVI - XVII centuries with the richest decorations. During these days, even the bells from the belfry of St. Sophia Cathedral were removed. Crimean museums are in a difficult situation. Already on the third day of the war, the nazis mined the Sevastopol harbor. The Chersonesos Historical and Archaeological Museum was evacuated in a combat situation. Nevertheless, the most valuable collections were taken from Sevastopol by steamer to Poti, and then delivered to Sverdlovsk.

It is impossible to overestimate the work of museum workers to save collections. It was often associated with a risk, a feat. An idea of the conditions under which this activity was conducted can be made using the example of the GIM.

In the first months of the war, 73 people left the GIM for the Red Army and the People's Militia. In the summer of 1941, emergency preparations for evacuation began. The work was organized in strict accordance with the requirements of the instructions for accounting and storage of collections. Exhibits of the first and second stages were packed; collections that were not subject to evacuation were stored in basements. The first 530 crates were shipped from Moscow, accompanied by a small group of employees, in July 1941.3 and delivered to the city of Khvalynsk, Saratov Region, in August. However, in November 1941, a new decision was made to send the GIM collections together with the collections of other Moscow museums to Kostanay. On the way, the women, who made up the majority of the escort group, had to transfer everything from the steamer to the railway cars manually. Despite the difficulties of the way, unsettled storage conditions and the life of the keepers, all the evacuated exhibits were saved, and later they were returned to Moscow.

The main part of the GIM team, which remained in Moscow, did not stop working even during the critical days of the battle on the nearest approaches to the capital. Only for a few days the museum was closed due to damage from a Nazi bomb that exploded nearby. To ensure the safety of the collection's storage in the first weeks of the war, a special accounting bureau was created, which compiled inventories of items evacuated and moved inside the museum. The most valuable items sent were replaced with models and copies. A specially created group of master restorers under the leadership of M. V. Gorodtsov and F. L. Frolov copied valuable original relics of the war of 1812: personal belongings of M. I. Kutuzov, Russian battle banners, weapons, etc. Further work of this group provided copies of various traveling exhibitions. Complex conservation and camouflage measures were carried out in the museum's branches - Pokrovsky Cathedral and Novodevichy Monastery.

The museum did not stop mass propaganda and educational work. From November 1941, the number of visitors began to grow, and in 1945, the number of visitors increased. it exceeded the pre-war one. The restructuring of the exhibition work in the first months of the war was reflected in the rapid development of a series of exhibitions, primarily on the military-

2 Politprosvetrabota, 1942, N 2, p. 8.

3 The second batch was prepared for shipment in November. 400 crates out of 600 were already loaded into railway cars when the Soviet counter-offensive that began in December saved the museum from having to continue evacuating.

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historical and patriotic themes. On September 17, 1941, the exhibition "The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People against German Fascism" (another name - "Anti-Fascist Exhibition") opened in nine halls of the museum. Other museums in Moscow also participated in the exhibition: the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR, the Timiryazev Biological Museum, the State Literary Museum, the Museum of the Revolution, and the Polytechnic Museum. Its sections were titled: "The Socialist Fatherland is in danger"; "Fascism is the worst enemy of humanity", "The heroic struggle of the Soviet people against German fascism","The heroic work of the country's rear".

In the autumn of 1941, the museum organized another exhibition dedicated to visual propaganda of air defense methods. Propaganda posters, diagrams, instructions, proclamations, and photos of self-defense teams ' classes helped train the population to act during the bombing. Subsequently, the exhibition became an integral part of the exposition dedicated to the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow.

In late 1941 - early 1942, exhibitions of military-historical content were prepared. On February 23, 1942, an exhibition was opened, telling about the military campaigns of the Russian army under the leadership of A.V. Suvorov, in April-the exhibition "700 years of the Ice Battle". One of the best exhibitions of the State Museum of War Years is "The Patriotic War of 1812".

A major event in the reconstruction of the museum's work was the exhibition "The defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow", opened in May 1942. Preparing it, the GIM team started collecting and completing a collection on the history of the Great Patriotic War. Employees of the museum went to collect materials in front-line and newly liberated areas, in active military formations. The exhibition presented the stages of the Battle for Moscow, its individual combat operations, monographically revealed the actions of individual units and formations, memorial and biographical complexes dedicated to the heroes of the battle. The exhibits of the exhibition formed a textbook basis for the future foundation on the history of the Great Patriotic War. Reflecting one of the most important stages in the history of the war, it had a great moral and political impact on the Soviet people and served as a model for organizing the team's work on historically important material in the most difficult conditions of the war.

Exhibition activity in the wake of events on the fronts was further developed. In February 1943, the exhibition "The Guard in the battles for the Motherland" was opened, in the fall - "Partisan War in Belarus". A new form of museum propaganda was represented by traveling exhibitions at enterprises, clubs, cinemas and parks in Moscow. Such exhibitions were already organized in the first months of the war in the Gorky Central Park and Sokolniki, on Trekhgorka, in the Metropol cinema, and in military units. In 1943, the number of visitors to the GIM continued to increase, and the student's office began to function. All this was due to the general events experienced by the country: during the war, a radical change occurred, and museums returned to traditional forms of work, adapting them to the conditions of wartime.

The reorganization of museums ' activities in a military way in the country as a whole took place in an organized manner, under the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, which was in charge of historical and local history museums in those years. Orders issued by the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, circular letters, and orders directed the restructuring of the work of museums. You can refer, in particular, to a specific document. On July 15, 1941, an appeal from the People's Commissariat of Education "To all museum employees"was sent out. It ordered that all the work of museums should be focused on educating the citizens of our country in the spirit of Soviet patriotism, loyalty to the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government. The attention of the museum management was drawn to the need to apply new forms and methods of exposition, mass-educational and political work that correspond to the conditions of the war. Orders issued in September 1941 and April 1942 provided for strengthening the extra-museum propaganda of the heroic and patriotic theme through traveling exhibitions, developing lecture programs and reports for a wide audience at enterprises, military units, and mobilization points. During this harsh time, the People's Commissariat of Education reminded museum managers of the need to strengthen their staff with specialists with higher education and academic titles.

The directive letter of the Museum Department dated November 15, 1941 specifically raised the issue of collecting materials on the history of the Great Patriotic War. Museum staff warned against possible mistakes and underestimation of the importance of this case. The letter reminded that "many very valuable materials describing the civil war period disappeared without a trace only because they were not collected in time." 4 Following this letter, the instruction of the Research Institute of Local Lore and Museology "On the collection of material and documentary materials of the Great Patriotic War"was compiled and sent to all regional and regional departments of public education. The same instruction was sent by the People's Commissariat of Education of Belarus to partisan units in 1942. During the difficult years of the Nazi occupation, material was carefully collected, which in Belarusian museums now forms the basis of expositions devoted to the history of the struggle of the Belarusian people for freedom and independence of the Soviet Motherland.

During the war years, control over ensuring the safety of the museum was strengthened-

4 Rabota politiko-prosveshchitel'nykh uchrezhdeniyakh [Work of political and educational institutions], Issue 4, Moscow, 1943, p. 14.

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new collections. In December 1942, for example, the regulation "On museum funds of the RSFSR subject to unified state registration"was issued. Measures were taken to create joint museum and library repositories, which was dedicated to the decree of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR of May 7, 1942. Other orders for the protection of museum collections were important for organizing the storage of collections in the conditions of evacuation. Helping the museum department of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, specialists of the Research Institute of Museology and Local Lore monitored the implementation of the directives of the People's Commissariat of Education, collected and summarized information from the field, developed recommendations and other methodological and instructional material, and organized the exchange of experience .5 Thus, at the beginning of 1942, the Research Institute distributed an instructive letter about lectures and other forms of extra-museum work of local history museums (in schools, Red Army units, in the front line and directly at the front, in territories liberated from occupation), collecting military material for museum expositions.

In 1943, the Institute published a report on the work of museums in the first year of the war. It also contains articles about the work of such museums as the State Museum of Fine Arts, the State Literary Museum, the Museum of the October Revolution in Leningrad, and the State Museum of Fine Arts. Of Darwin. The theoretical understanding of museological problems also continued. In 1943, the textbooks "Basic issues of museum and local lore" and "Museum and Local Lore" were published. They defined the tasks of local history museums to study the history and nature of the region, educate its population in the spirit of Soviet patriotism, promote historical traditions, explain the place and role of the region in the common struggle of the Soviet people against fascist aggression; it was recommended to accumulate exhibits reflecting the heroic work of people in enterprises, collective farms and state farms, as well as fellow countrymen at the front.

The theme of stationary and mobile expositions was expanded. In 1942, the Novosibirsk Regional Museum of Local Lore created 40 traveling exhibitions on various historical, patriotic, military and political topics. 103 exhibitions were created by the Cherepovets Museum of Local Lore (43 of them were deployed at propaganda stations). The Vologda Regional Museum, museums of Buryatia, Dagestan, Tataria and other autonomous republics of the RSFSR revived their military-patriotic propaganda. In general, by the end of 1942, the main evacuation measures were completed, a new regime of conservation work was established, and the theme of exhibition and propaganda and educational work of museums was rebuilt. Since 1943, a new stage of their activity in the conditions of war has begun. Since that time, museums have begun to systematically collect, complete and display historical material of the Great Patriotic War.

5 For example, a pamphlet by K. A. Vrachinskaya entitled "Cherepovets Regional Museum of Local Lore during the Great Patriotic War" (Moscow, 1943) was published.

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K. G. LEVYKIN, RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WORK OF HISTORICAL AND LOCAL HISTORY MUSEUMS DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR // Astana: Digital Library of Kazakhstan (BIBLIO.KZ). Updated: 25.01.2025. URL: https://biblio.kz/m/articles/view/RECONSTRUCTION-OF-THE-WORK-OF-HISTORICAL-AND-LOCAL-HISTORY-MUSEUMS-DURING-THE-GREAT-PATRIOTIC-WAR (date of access: 15.02.2025).

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