Interpretation of the past in the expositions of the Artillery Historical Museum in the 1930s

This article is devoted to changes in the interpretation of the past in the expositions of the Artillery Historical Museum during the 1930s. Historical museums, which include the Artillery Historical Museum, now called the “Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Communications”, are able to preserve historical memory. Cooperation with them gave the authorities the opportunity to hold their point of view on the past. The key role in the representation of history was played by expositions. Information on their changes was obtained from unpublished archival documents: exposition plans, business correspondence and manuscripts on the history of the museum. The article begins the analysis of expositions from the first half of the 1930s. During this period, when showing the history of artillery, the emphasis was on division by formation. The article further deals with the re-exposition of 1935. An artillery hall and a small arms hall were created. New permanent exhibitions were built on a chronological basis, based on division by formation. The article focuses on the temporary exhibitions of those years. In 1937 the museum was closed again. The article continues to study the expositions opened already in the pre-war years. On November 6, 1939, the artillery hall began to work, where the comparative development of foreign and Russian weapons was demonstrated. Tight binding to formations has disappeared. The basis for the construction of the exhibition was national history. In 1940 three more halls opened: the Ammunition Hall, the Suvorov Hall and the Red Army weapons hall. The article ends with the conclusion that in the subjects of the exposition there is a transition from a demonstration of the evolution of combat weapons in the context of Marxist doctrine to the history of Russian artillery