Representative of Museum of Great Patriotic War History: 1,200 new exhibits added to our collections every year

The main activities of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War History for 80 years have been aimed at preserving historical memory, first of all the memory of the Great Patriotic War, and passing it on to the next generations – as noted by Svetlana Pribysh, the deputy chief curator at the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History

Speaking about the types of the museum’s activities, Ms. Pribysh elaborated on the exposition direction, i.e. the presentation of the collected materials, “When it was opened in 1944 in the liberated Minsk, our museum had about 10,000 storage units. Today we have more than 164,000 of them. On average, the museum’s fund is replenished by 1,200 units a year. Our predecessors started this work decades ago, and we are continuing it. Today we are working more with the descendants of those who took part in the war. Unfortunately, we often hear from them that their grandparents who took part in the war never told them anything about it. We have to recover information bit by bit, because if we don’t do it today, we will lose important information forever.”

Speaking about the popularisation of museum objects, Ms. Pribysh noted the tradition of displaying the museum’s latest arrivals, “We show visitors what is currently being added to the museum’s collections. A lot of interesting things come in. Last year, e.g., on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from the Nazi invaders, the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow hosted a solemn handover of items from the families of the USSR marshals. They donated some of their family’s possessions to the museum, which are now on display in our exposition.”

The donated items included furniture from the office of our fellow compatriot Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, documents and photos of the famous military leader Konstantin Rokossovsky, as well as a tunic, a tank model and other items belonging to Marshal Oleg Losik.

This year saw the launch of the Museum Rarities project. Once a month, a unique object from 29 collections is displayed. Guides tell visitors about it, people and events connected with it. Ms. Pribysh announced that next week a unique exhibit – an icon of Euphrosyne of Polotsk – will be exhibited as part of the project. It is connected with an interesting story of the front-line artist Yevgeny Rozhkov, which the tour guides will be happy to tell the museum visitors in March.