Commemoration of the Special Military Operation through the Museum and Exhibition Activities

The article is devoted to the role of Russian museums in constructing collective memory of the Special Military Operation (SMO) events and the main aspects of this process. The research is based on publicly available materials on museum and exhibition projects dedicated to the SMO, as well as the results of an expert survey (n = 5) of representatives of federal museums and non-profit organizations who participated in collecting artifacts at the frontline zone as part of the work of the intermuseum group of the Ministry of Culture of Russia. During the study it was explained why museum workers were involved in creating exhibitions dedicated to the SMO, and main approaches to making exhibitions in departmental, federal and regional museums were revealed. Today’s most problematic issue is that military departmental museums posess priority access to collecting artifacts in the area of SMO. At the same time civil museums, that have more visitors and widest public, get the access on a residual basis. The difficulty also lies in the fact that small regional museums are often unable to place exhibits from SMO area in a broad historical context, as required by the guidelines developed at the federal level.