From 26 March to 1 June, the JINR Mir Cultural Centre is hosting The First Star: the Birth of a New Interaction exhibition marking to the 70th anniversary of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The display chronicles JINR’s creation by presenting a series of unique events that took place in 1946–1957.
The final signing of the Agreement on the Establishment of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was the result of an international meeting held in Moscow on 20–26 March 1956. Authorised delegations from 11 socialist camp countries signed an Agreement to establish an international institute, settled on a name, outlined the principles of collaboration, arranged free shared access to two Soviet nuclear laboratories along with world-class accelerator facilities, and elected a directorate.
Divided into ten thematic segments, The First Star: the Birth of a New Interaction begins with a panorama of events preceding the formation of JINR, provides a close-up of the Meeting, and ends with materials on the creation of the international institute’s structures.
The start of the exhibition focuses on M. G. Meshcheryakov observing the 1946 American atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, followed by an exploration of nuclear initiatives getting redirected toward peaceful goals. In addition, the display highlights the gradual declassification of the Hydrotechnical Laboratory (which began the history of scientific Dubna) and its transformation into the Institute for Nuclear Problems, reflected through the prism of documents and photographs, fragments of interviews and manuscripts. Special attention is paid to the first two accelerators – the synchrocyclotron and the synchrophasotron.
Other topics include the expansion of international cooperation, the session of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (1–5 July 1955), and the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva (8–20 August 1955), where future scientific collaborations were outlined.
Among the most interesting exhibits are pages from D. I. Blokhintsev’s album, where he reflected on his participation in the Geneva Conference, as well as archived photos and other artefacts (badges, participant’s mandate, postcards), accompanied by his own humorous notes. Another section contains pages of his notebooks from the very beginning of his tenure as the JINR director. A summary of his conversation with N. N. Bogoliubov, a proposal to “break Mondays”, a trace of the cosmic ray laboratory that ended up never being established, all written and sketched by the hand of the physicist and the artist, reflecting the movement of thought inventing the new institute.
The central part of the exhibition is the materials of the Meeting at which JINR was established. In addition to getting acquainted with the main documents displayed on the walls, visitors are welcome to conduct their own archival search. In boxes full of papers is correspondence about hosting delegations from abroad, discussions of the institute’s name, and arrangements of tours of Dubna facilities.
The final section focuses on inaugural milestones: the first guests from other countries, the first Scientific Council, the first Committee of the Plenipotentiaries of the JINR Member States, and the first stages of the Institute’s history. The title, “The first star”, originates from an inscription in Blokhintsev’s album, referencing a track image captured following the synchrophasotron’s 1957 launch.
A comprehensive installation based on a unique newsreel and workforce data from JINR’s first year offer a new perspective on the use of archival data. By its establishment, the Institute already employed over a thousand people. Their names, found in 1956 employee lists and JINR director’s orders, are used in the visualisation inspired by track images.
The display features unique audio recordings: memoirs and fragments of conversations with M. G. Meshcheryakov and D. I. Blokhintsev, excerpts of interviews with Institute’s employees and their family members from the JINR Historical Archive’s oral history collections.
The materials were sources from JINR’s group of scientific and technical documentation collections, governmental, departmental, institutional, and family archives:
- Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAS),
- Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI),
- Russian State Film and Photo Archive (RGAKFD),
- Centratomarchive private institution,
- RIA Novosti image libraries,
- JINR Archive, as well as photo and film collections,
- family collections of the Blokhintsevs, Meshcheryakovs, Bogachevs, Poroshins, etc.
Most of the documents are presented for the first time.
To accommodate a diverse audience, English translations are available for many materials for the convenience of JINR’s employees and guests from other countries.
Visitors can explore the exhibition at the Mir Cultural Centre until 1 June in two formats:
- Free admission (Tue — Sun, 1:00 – 7:00 PM). Registration is not required.
- Group guided tour.
Tours are conducted by curator, Associate Professor of the School of History at the Faculty of Humanities at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), coordinator of the JINR-HSE joint historical and archival initiative Galina Orlova, as well as JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology and JINR Historical Archive employees directly involved in the creation of the exhibition.
