State Darwin Museum during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War (WWII)

6 May 2020 — 13 September 2020

Расположение: eng-name

The exhibition portrays the challenges and hardships Darwin museum had to face during WWII through the photos, carefully stored by several generations of the museum employees. The founders of Darwin museum – Alexander Kohts, his wife Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts, their son Rudolph – as well as a dozen of museum staff, had only one goal – to save the museum’s collections from destruction. However, very quickly the number of “protectors” decreased, as many had to join the army. Even at the battlefield, they didn’t break the bonds with the museum keeping in touch through letters and postcards to their colleagues, which will also be displayed at the exhibition.

Among fascinating exhibits you will find drawings done on the battlefield by merited artists of the USSR, such as Sophia Uranova, Vadim Trofimov.

Starting from July 1, 1941, Darwin museum is closed for visitors and all guided tours canceled. The museum’s director is working on the detailed plan of the museum’s collection evacuation. Archive documents are stating which objects were to be transported first.

The bombing makes the top floors of the building the most vulnerable, therefore more than a thousand of taxidermied animals, as well as numerous paintings and drawings, are transported to the ground floor and basement.

All museum windows are covered with dark cloth and paper. All floors are equipped with boxes with sand and buckets with water to disable the incendiary bombs.

During the war the museum employees start giving educative lectures in hospitals to lift the spirit of the injured soldiers. Alexander Kohts works with disabled patients, while his wife Nadezhda helps women-patients, using her professional skills and knowledge in psychology. Their son Rudolph shows films for hospital patients. Altogether over 700 lectures were given and 1000 films were shown by Darwin museum employees during the years of the war.

Moreover, there were several exhibitions organized in hospitals, one of them displaying paintings by Konstantin Flerov depicting “animals on duty during the war”, some of which have become part of the present exhibition.

Alexander Kohts at a hospital, 1942 – 1944.


Alexander Kohts, Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts, Rudolph Kohts, 1942.


Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts is giving a lecture at a hospital, 1941-1944.


Philipp Fedulov, Eugeny Gavrilov, and Rudolph Kohts on the roof of Darwin museum during the night watch.


Professor Alexander Kohts is giving a lecture to injured soldiers about the selective breeding, 1941-1944.


The artist Konstantin Flerov next to his series of paintings “Animals on duty during the Great Patriotic War”, 1942.


“City landscape with military machines” by Vadim Trofimov. Paper, charcoal, 1944-45.v



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