The State Historical Museum of Russia (the web-site is only in Russian) has launched the exhibition "12 hours and 40 minutes of democracy". 90 years ago, on 18 January (5 January Old Style) 1918 the Constituent Assembly opened in Petrograd. The sitting continued for 12 hours and 40 minutes and was dissolved by the bolsheviks (I wrote about the these events in January 19 in Russian history a year ago).
The exhibition features the documents describing the first free and general elections in Russia and the Assembly itself: the election leaflets and banners, letters of the electors to the candidates, photographs and protocols of the Assembly, black and white balls used to elect the chairman, list of the people killed during the manifestation of support to the Assembly, the drawings made by the painter Yu. Artsybushev who attended the sitting and many more. One of the exhibits that really convey the spirit of those days is the banner of the SR party (socialist revolutionaries) calling people to join the manifestation of support and the leaflet of the Petrograd Soviet of the Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies glued right above the banner calling to ignore the manifestation.
The exhibition will work for one month, since 30 January till 30 March. The article on the web-site of the State Historical Museum in Russian is here. This is one of those rare occasions when I'm sorry I don't live in Moscow. :(
add to del.icio.us
Posts
1 comment:
My wife and I are going to museums and exhibitions. I think that I would like to go see this. If we do we will take pictures and such and maybe gather information for you. If you would want. It runs two months! I have seen this advertised on billboards in Moscow. I will talk to Svet and see if she is interested.
This sounds really good, and a very important part of Russian history
Kyle
Post a Comment