An exhibition titled “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia,” created by the Russian Military Historical Society, has opened on the grounds of the Katyn memorial complex near Smolensk, in western Russia. According to the organization’s website, most of the exhibition is devoted to events of the 20th century and World War II, with special attention given to the theme of “Russophobia in contemporary Poland.”
“The exhibition is dedicated to the history of Polish Russophobia: that is, the hatred of the Polish state’s elite toward Russia and the Russian people in various historical periods, and how this hatred manifested itself in concrete actions. Namely, in the seizure of Russian territory and in the destruction of the Russian, Belarusian, and Little Russian peoples. The exhibition is intended to remind visitors of the most important lessons of history in relations between Russia and Poland,” said Mikhail Myagkov, the scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society.
The Katyn memorial complex was opened in the late 1990s in honor of the victims of political repression in the USSR. The memorial grounds include a cemetery where more than 4,400 Polish officers are buried; they were executed in 1940 by NKVD officers after being taken as prisoners of war during the Soviet offensive against Poland that began on Sept. 17, 1939, just over two weeks after Hitler’s forces invaded Poland from the west. The compound also contains the graves of thousands of residents of the Smolensk region who were executed in the 1930s.
The exhibition “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia” was previously shown in Moscow — opening on Gogolevsky Boulevard in October 2025. The Insider was unable to find any information about this exhibition on the website of the Katyn memorial complex.
