A photographic exhibition featuring Second World War photographs from the Imperial War Museum London which was to document the war from a Western perspective, and due to open in Yekaterinburg, Russia, last week has been cancelled. The Metenkov House Museum of Photography announced that it was to close down indefinitely for ‘technical reasons’. But Russia’s secret service, the FSB, is suspected to be behind the shut down.
“The reason for the closure was the new exhibition, ‘Triumph and Tragedy: Allies in the Second World War’, which the employees of the museum prepared together with the American consulate,” the Oblastnaya Gazeta said on its website.
The exhibition, was promoted via the British Embassy’s Facebook page which said the exhibition would “recount events of the Second World War that are little known in Russia.” and was set to include images such as V-J Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaed. It is thought that the tone of the exhibition has angered the Kremlin, but neither the museum nor the British Embassy in Russia has confirmed these rumours – reported The Telegraph.
The Metenkov House Museum of Photography had scheduled the exhibition Triumph and Tragedy: Allies in the Second World War to open last week; Moscow is thought to have been upset by the boycotting of the 70th anniversary of the ending of World War II celebrations in Russia due to the annexation of the Ukraine, by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama on May 9, 2015.
Mikhail Menshikov, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Russia, added: “We are speaking to our American colleagues about opening the exhibition at another time. This exhibition is a good opportunity to show cooperation between Soviet soldiers and British and American forces during the war,” he concluded.