The 60th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War 

Exhibition of the Artists – Veterans

The Exhibition Venter of the Union of Artists

38, Bolshaya Morskaya str, St. Petersburg, Russia

From April 29, 2005 - May 15, 2005

  The Union of Artists has presented an exhibition of the veteran artists. All of them participated in the Great Patriotic War. The works produced astonished the people with their truthfulness and reliability.

  The first exhibition is devoted to the Great Patriotic war and was first organized by the Union of Artists in 1942-43. At that particular time they showed the works of  the then artists-turned-to soldiers with the purpose of encouraging their fighting comrades to do the same. Since then the exhibition has developed a regular theme. Perhaps in the last time this exhibition has such a great importance.

  Lithographs and engravings by Starov, Ushin, Buchkin, Galba and Lavrukhin; caricatures by Kharkevich; drawings by Vetrogonsk; paintings by Ionin, Varichev, Trufanov, Malysh, Tatarinov, Tulin, Eremeev, Razdrogin, Romanychev and other artists are represented.

  Front-line artists managed to depict in their drawings those things that did not remain in the soldiers’ memory.

   The opening of the exhibition began with putting bouquets of flowers at the memorial board and with minutes of silence in memory of the artists who died in the Great Patriotic war.

   Viktor Astafyev wrote in the notes of his novel "Cursed and Killed": “Some time ago I caught and enthusiastically repeated Konstantin Simonov’s words: “Only people do know  the truth about the war”. Alas, now I know that only God knows all the truth about the war. Our people did not really know it and, perhaps, do not want to know it, because it is too awful and disgusting. The memory is just too much for the tired Russian people, especially for the warriors who could not bear it”.