I join the start of the Russian Revolution – well, at least the exhibition
As a blogger, I was invited to this morning’s media preview at the British Library of the new exhibition “Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths” which opens to to the general public tomorrow and runs until 29 August. We were shown around the exhibition by the curators Katya Rogatchevshaia and Susan Reed.
This fascinating exhibition tells the story of the Revolution through posters, letters, photographs, banners, weapons, items of uniform, recordings and film and highlights include:
- 1st edition of Communist Manifesto, published in London in 1848
- Nicholas II Coronation Album from 1896
- Russo-Japanese War cartoon posters
- Photographic images and caricatures of Rasputin
- Leg irons from a Siberian prison camp
- Items of Red Army uniforms
- White Russian counter-revolutionary propaganda posters
- Lenin’s Memorial Book
- Banner gifted to the Shipley Young Communist League
- A letter, dated 1922, from Scotland Yard to the British Museum Library requesting that a selection of Bolshevik literature is not made public due to its incendiary nature
One really interesting feature is not an exhibit but an electronic display: a map of Russia that changes to illustrate the balance of forces in the civil wars over the period from 1918-1922.