The great patriotic war in the exhibitions of the State local history museum of the Karelian ASSR (Karelo-Finnish SSR)

The article investigates the characteristics of the museum representation of the Great Patriotic War through the example of permanent exhibitions of the State Local History Museum of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR) during the 1940s and the early 1980s. The purpose of the research was to reveal the key factors that influenced the museum’s representation policy. The relevance of the research lies in the author’s approach to analyze historical exhibitions as a special type of visual historical narrative created within the authentic historiographical tradition and socio-political discourse sensitive to changes. The thematic structure, choice of exhibits, textual content, and composition of the exhibitions were recorded in thematic exhibition plans. The permanent exhibitions dedicated to the Great Patriotic War were shaped in the late 1940s and became the basis for all the subsequent war-themed exhibitions. The collection was constantly replenished with new exhibits but did not undergo any significant changes. Such visual aids and auxiliary means as information banners, explanatory texts, plates and labels, on the contrary, were newly created for every following exhibition, taking into account the prevailing tendencies in historiography and the country’s social and political life. Therefore, perceptions of the war, its main heroes and evens reflected in these texts transformed throughout the studied period. These transformations were connected not only and not so much with new knowledge, but with the social and political changes and the museum’s desire to meet the current agenda.