On 7 October 2022 in Patriarch’s Palace, the Moscow Kremlin Museums open the exhibition devoted to the life and activity of Georgy Vasilievich Chicherin – a stern revolutionist and the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
The project brings together over eighty unique objects from the collections of national museums, libraries and archives, such as the State Historical Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, State Central Museum of Russian Modern History, Archive of Foreign Policy of Russian Federation, and Russian State Library.
It is for the first time that the Moscow Kremlin Museums will show sets of uniforms of 1922-1924 model belonging to G.V. Chicherin: two soldier blouses, galifé pants and a greatcoat with sew-on buckle strips on the chest. The great value of these items is due both to their commemorative significance and almost perfect condition, for only a few genuine examples of the Red Army uniform of the early 1920s have survived to this day. During official receptions in the Kremlin, the military uniform became a worthy alternative to the tails, tuxedo and top hat, which were stipulated by the norms of international protocol, but in Soviet Russia were associated with a hostile "bourgeoisie". In this connection, a special place is given to the group of oriental garments presented to G. V. Chicherin by the Asian delegations. Those gifts included a Bukhara robe and a Mongolian national robe. In these fanciful oriental robes, G.V. Chicherin appears in the photographs and rare documentary footage which will be also on display.
“Our curators carried out a large research of the military uniform that is kept in the Moscow Kremlin Museums and, having studied the documents, designs and peculiarities of the model, they came to a conclusion that these items had belonged to the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR G.V. Chicherin. The uniform was created by artist M.D. Ezuchevsky around 1918, but it did not live long, while it was hard to produce and some details were created and sewn on manually. On the exhibition we will show those unique samples that have remained,” notes Elena Yu. Gagarina, Director General of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
Guests of the exhibition will have an opportunity to see the draft of Chicherin’s speech for the Genoa Conference, which made a deep impression on the participants of the international forum. It was the first time the representative of the new Soviet government, addressing the global political elites, put forward the principle of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial economic cooperation between states with different social systems and declared the need for an overall reduction of armaments.
Another section of the exhibition is dedicated to the Moscow Kremlin, where official social events on a higher level took place and life-changing decisions were made. Here one will see photographs and documentary footage, agitation porcelain, metal artworks and objects of visual art of the early 1920-ies, as well as the painting after K. Yuon “1923. Parade of the Red Army”.
The exhibition may attract not only professionals, interested in the history of international relations and foreign policy but also a wide audience of the Moscow Kremlin Museums. Different events, such as lectures, excursions and programs for adults, children and families will be held within the project.