Exhibitions

"(not)published": in the space of a paper sheet

The exhibition "(not)published" that was inaugurated on 6 May in the JINR Cultural Centre "Mir" is timed to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and offers a look at history through fragile artifacts of personal and collective memory.

The handwritten letter, the "front triangle" that remained unpublished and was never intended for printing and the large-circulation printed newspaper that became part of the official chronicle are similar in that they exist in the space of the paper sheet in which the word takes its form - a poignant personal testimony or a public source.

At the exhibition, one can see three letters of the 1940s from the personal archive of Mikhail Meshcheryakov, kindly provided by Galina Meshcheryakova, niece of one of the founding fathers of JINR; a school notebook of sixth-grader Sofia Koskova with an essay "Letter to the Front" and a handwritten book of memoirs written in the 1970-1980s by veteran Zakhar Maksimov.

And for the published part of the exhibition, as well as the military history of our country are responsible newspaper publications, represented by a selection of articles with notes and memories of the Great Patriotic War, published for more than six decades in the weekly "Dubna: Science, Cooperation, Progress" (until 1980 - "For Communism"). Newspaper scans are enlarged and made up into huge canvases that create a special atmosphere in the exhibition space, surrounding the audience from all sides with the printed word.

At the exhibition, handwritten articles and printed newspapers are not opposed to each other but create a separate, yet also more complete picture in the perception of the audience: as different artifacts of one material reality, in which the memory of the experience can be preserved.

A metal imprint of the first issue of the newspaper "For Communism", as well as a unique photograph of Mikhail Meshcheryakov reading the issue where a piece about him was published feature prominently in the exposition. Quotes from the texts of the weekly's editor Evgeny Molchanov, included in the exhibition narrative, shed light on how the work of Dubna's main weekly was arranged - carefully, year after year, building a dialog between a man and time.

These sheets, be they yellowed handwritten letters, school notebooks, crumbling barn book sheets or newspaper pages are paper carriers of memory that are rarely preserved. They are living testimonies of time that need to be studied and preserved. In the exhibition space these objects are intertwined, telling the history of the city and the country through the fates and words of those that went through the Great Patriotic War and their descendants, striving to preserve their memory.

"This exhibition is a very subtle, delicate contribution of our Institute to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Victory," JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov said at the opening of the exhibition. "This is an exhibition about how our Institute and Dubna participated in this war and what contribution they made to the victory. After all, the people that built the Institute were participants in the war, winners. It was them to organize life on our sites and the life of the city itself. Therefore, the exhibition presents a portrait of the era, a portrait of the life of our country that during these eighty years has developed and is directly related to the history of our Institute."

The materials presented at the exhibition are exhibited for the first time and were found in the course of archival research carried out by the Historical Archive at the JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology in close cooperation with the weekly "Dubna: Science, Cooperation, Progress" in 2025.

"The publication, unique for our city and the Institute for almost 68 years, namely, 4764 issues, is a carrier of living memory of those that founded the city, the Institute," the keeper of the history of the weekly Irina Leonovich said at the opening. "The generation of front-line soldiers, participants of the Great Patriotic War are people of special quality, people that are able to achieve their goals, sacrifice their personal life for the sake of high ideals. They laid not only the foundations of the Laboratories and basic facilities, but also the moral climate in our international staff. This is cohesion, mutual assistance, the desire to learn the laws of nature, acting in the name of science and progress in the world.

Until the early 1990s, our newspaper was the only one in the city. And that is why, only on our pages you will find events and interviews with the Institute's employees and war veterans. Here you can make sure of it and you can browse through the old issues on the website of our weekly.

And today, at this exhibition, we present ourselves to you in such a large format. It is an honor and pride for us. And we are grateful to the initiators for the opportunity to present to all residents of the city and its guests a part of the history preserved in our pages."

The exhibition "(not) published" was open in the Cultural Centre "Mir" until 18 May.

Anastasia GOLDSTEIN,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA