The summer day of June 22, 1941 in one minute became a black mark for a huge country where people of different nationalities lived, worked, and studied peacefully. The Great Patriotic war began. And all, as one, they stood up to protect their homeland, their families, their homes.

In the ranks of the defenders of the Fatherland there were many Turkmen soldiers who defended Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Sevastopol, the cities of the Caucasus, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States, liberated Europe from fascism and reached Berlin. They became an example of bravery and bravery. The war required maximum mobilization of internal resources of all industrial enterprises, some of which were transferred to the manufacture of ammunition and weapons.

Turkmenistan has become a strong rear of a large country. Here were concentrated the branches of heavy industry that had a defense significance, completed combat units, based hospitals, rebuilt the national economy in a military way. Stoically overcoming difficulties, the daykhans of Turkmenistan successfully completed the cotton harvest in the first year of the war.

Many collective farms, experiencing a severe shortage of labor, grew a rich crop of cotton in 1944. Women of Turkmenistan, replacing their husbands and brothers who went to the front, mastered "male" professions. They drove tractors, combines, and trucks. Turkmen women made a great contribution to the national cause by donating hundreds of kilograms of national silver jewelry and other valuables representing family heirlooms to the defense Fund.

United by a common misfortune, people helped the front in any way they could - organized Saturdays and Sundays, gave financial resources and jewelry. From the first days of the war, the Turkmen people showed great care for the families of front-line soldiers, for the evacuees and wounded who arrived in the Republic in whole trains, which was a clear evidence of the friendship of peoples and patriotism. The goal was sacred to everyone-the approach of Victory.

Cultural figures could not stay away either. Turkmen artists also showed great initiative. Following the example of Moscow's TASS Windows, Turkmen TAG Windows are organized. Graphic artists created two hundred and seventy propaganda posters about the heroic deeds of front-line soldiers and home front workers during the war. In December 1944, posters of E. M. Adamova, G. F. Babikova, M. M. Daneshvar, Yu.P. Daneshvar, D. A. Ivchenko, R. Melnichuk were displayed at the exhibition of propaganda posters and cartoons. The poster of the war years, with the simplicity of artistic means, achieved a special conciseness, intense emotionality, and clear compositional solutions. Anti-theft theme was crucial in the satirical newspaper and magazine graphics, which gained sharpness, metaphor, grotesque in easel linocut I. I. Charinko "Zoya Kosmodemian Skye" 1942, a series of drawings by G. F. Babikova, "the Way of the regiment" in 1942, a series of watercolors of Yu. P. Daneshvar "Face of the enemy" 1942-1945

Weapons in the hands of artists were not only a brush and pencil, many of them as more experienced artists, and young, recent graduates or students of art taught defended their Homeland. I. I. Cherinko, A. Kuliyev, N. Dovodov, G. F. Babikov, Ya. Annanurov, and I. N. Gylyjov went to the front. In a combat situation, they made sketches, sketches reflecting the events of the war, many of which later found expression in more serious plans.

Evacuated artists arrived in Turkmenistan, far from the front line, adding to the small national creative team. Among them E. Kordysh, R. Melnichuk, I. Captenaru, P. Lushin and others.

During the great Patriotic war and in easel painting, significant works were created. The artistic life of Turkmenistan continued: exhibitions were systematically organized, and the State Museum of fine arts worked steadily. Overcoming the enormous difficulties caused by the conditions of the first, most difficult period of the Second world war, the Turkmen people fulfilled the tasks assigned to them with honor and dignity, providing great assistance to the front and making a serious contribution to the common cause of the great Victory.

"Neutral Turkmenistan»