Siege graphics: heroism, routine life, memory

The State Museum of Political History of Russia opened the exhibition "Siege graphics: heroism, routine life, memory". It presents about 30 works from the museum collections, the authors of these works are the artists who survived the siege of Leningrad: Elena Marttila, Nikolai Muratov, Alexei Pakhomov, Alexander Kharshak, Tatiana Wiesel, Mikhail Dukhanov. Many of these works are almost unknown to the public, among the exhibits there are those have not been exhibited before, says curator of the exhibition, researcher of the museum Alexei Boyko. For example, Elena Marttila's drawings did not fit into the standards for the image of the siege adopted in Soviet times, so they were rarely exhibited. The works of Mikhail Dukhanin, a non-professional artist and commander of the 67th Army of the Leningrad Front, are interesting. In one of his drawings (you can see it at the exhibition) Dukhanov depicted the moment of a young girl's tragic death under the ruins of a destroyed house.

At the opening of the exhibition, the director of the State Museum of Political History of Russia Evgeny Artemov noted that the "Siege Graphics" is the first exhibition project of the museum as part of the events dedicated to the Year of Memory and Glory. In the near future, several more exhibitions about the Great Patriotic War are going to be opened. "Every time we prepare for exhibitions about the war and the siege, we try to find something new," says Svetlana Khodakovskaya, the museum's chief curator. - There are not many works at this exhibition, but we have tried to find works that have not yet been shown and that will open up new authors to the viewer".

The exhibition will be open in the museum's atrium until February 26.