The Greatness of the People’s Feat. 1939–1945

The exhibition is built on a thematic and chronological principle and shows the main stages of the Second World War.

Documents, photographs and personal belongings of our countrymen tell of the tragic events of the war up to 9 May 1945.

Over an area of more than 80 square metres, about 800 original objects from the museum’s collections are on display: samples of Soviet and German military uniforms, 36 firearms and edged weapons of domestic and foreign make, more than 140 Soviet and German badges and combat awards of the pre-war and war years, everyday items of front-line soldiers and Kharkiv residents, flags, newspapers, posters, documents and banknotes of the Second World War.

Of special interest among them are:

• certificates of fighters of the People’s Militia corps and the destroyer battalions formed from residents of the city and the region;
• documents of Kharkiv residents from the period of the German occupation;
• the overcoat of an auxiliary-police officer;
• a vase made from an artillery shell case with the coats of arms of Slovakia and Germany;
• medical instruments and notes of the well-known Kharkiv physician Professor O. I. Meshchaninov, who, risking his life, saved Red Army prisoners of war together with the staff of City Hospital No. 9 during the German occupation;
• the dress uniform of Major General A. M. Horodnianskyi, commander of the 6th Army, who was killed during the Barvinkove operation in May 1942;
• a sample of the field uniform of a German senior sergeant major and the everyday jacket of a German tank crewman;
• the overcoat and personal weapon of the legendary commander, Hero of the Soviet Union, Guards Lieutenant P. M. Shyronin;
• the flag of one of the 10 rifle divisions that distinguished themselves most in the battles for Kharkiv and received the honorary right to be called “Kharkiv” — the 116th Kharkiv Red Banner Rifle Division;
• a Yugoslav flag inscribed “To the first herald of freedom”, presented to our countryman M. I. Shaplikhin by fighters of the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Army;
• the dress tunic and sabre of Lieutenant General O. V. Shchelakovskyi, a participant of the Victory Parade.

The unique collection of weapons from the Second World War is of constant interest to visitors.

The Kharkiv Historical Museum displays, among others: the Degtyaryov light machine gun, the Maxim heavy machine gun, Shpagin and Degtyaryov submachine guns, the Mosin rifle, the TT pistol, a Soviet anti-tank rifle; a German company mortar, the MP-40 submachine gun, Walther signal pistols, the Mauser carbine, officers’ daggers; and a British Bren infantry and anti-aircraft machine gun.

Within the exhibition “The Greatness of the People’s Feat” visitors can see awards of different armies of the wartime: military decorations of the Red Army, the War Cross of the Czechoslovak Republic, the Garibaldi Star for Valour awarded to Kharkiv resident M. S. Almakaiev, a participant of the anti-fascist Resistance in Italy; and German badges and awards.