Photos of the Soviet Soviet photography - history in photographs

Each era has its own photographic heritage. Looking at Soviet photography and photographs of that historical period, people of the older generation experience nostalgic feelings, and young people can see in detail the life of a once-vanished empire. During the Soviet period of our country's history, photographers tried to create works that would contribute to the construction of a socialist society. Despite the influence of the totalitarian regime, several stylistic trends in photography emerged at this time. From photographs taken by various photographers, we can today judge the life of people in the Soviet Union and get into the spirit of that era.

The 20s of the last century coincided with a change in the social system in Russia, caused by the October Revolution. After the establishment of Soviet power in the country, great importance began to be attached to the promotion of the ideas of social equality and justice. Masters of culture - cinematographers, artists, theater directors, writers and photographers - were now required to create a new image of man, a new way of life and culture. The photographers were not tasked with capturing the reality around them as it looked in reality. After all, the country was in complete chaos after the civil war. Photographers and other cultural figures were supposed to become the mouthpiece of the Soviet government, calling on young people to build a completely new world.

To do this, the photographers' lenses had to completely transform the real world. With their photographs they were supposed to show people the beginnings of a bright future and convince them of the greatness of Soviet power. The 20s and 30s turned out to be extremely productive for the development of photography in Russia. One by one, specialized photographic publications began to appear in the country, clubs opened where discussions were held about the form and style of the photographic language. Creative youth began to actively get involved in these turbulent processes, trying to bring photographic art to the masses.

Pictorial photography

By the 1930s, three separate areas of photography had formed in the Soviet Union, which came into sharp conflict with each other. The first direction of Soviet photographic art is pictorial or “salon” photography, which was promoted by the Russian Photographic Society at the beginning of the 20th century. This direction was based on the traditions of the European pictorial school.

Pictorial photography opposed itself to documentary photography; its main goal was the desire to bring photography closer to classical paintings. For this purpose, soft-focus lenses and special techniques for creating prints were used. In the photographs of the masters of pictorial photography, the main attention was focused on the emotional coloring of the work, the aesthetic side. In the Soviet Union, the most famous representatives of this direction of photography were Alexander Grinberg, Nikolai Andreev, Vasily Ulitin and Yuri Eremin. These photographers were welcome guests at many major international photography exhibitions and salons, invariably receiving prestigious awards.

A. Greenberg. Dance with a headscarf, Tsaritsyno, Moscow, 1920s

Perhaps the brightest and most talented representative of the pictorial school of photography was Alexander Grinberg. His works in the 20s and 30s were presented at many major exhibitions in Europe and America. Greenberg masterfully mastered the most complex techniques for processing photographic images and was excellent at building the composition of a photograph in order to convey to the viewer the emotional state of the main character or the environment. In his creative experiments, the photographer mastered a unique technique for processing prints in oil. In Alexander Grinberg's photographs you can see nude scenes, simple genre sketches and landscapes.

Since the late 20s, the work of Russian pictorialist photographers began to be subject to constant obstruction from Soviet critics. The Soviet authorities saw representatives of the old photographic school as “enemies of the people” who, in their opinion, promoted bourgeois, class values. The Literary Gazette wrote the following about the works of Alexander Grinberg in 1935: “When they try to pass off cheap symbolism as an image, nothing but vulgarity comes out.”

Over time, criticism began to develop into physical repression. Greenberg did not escape them either. Also in 1935, he was accused of “distributing pornography” and sent to Stalin’s camps. The same fate befell some other representatives of the Russian pictorial school of photography. The rest simply lost the right to engage in their professional activities and, especially, to exhibit their photographs abroad.

"Proletarian" photography

Another direction of photography developed in accordance with the traditional canons of Soviet art, based on the promotion of state achievements in industry, agriculture, science and other fields. This is the so-called “proletarian” photography, in which documentary photo reporting was seen as a tool of class struggle. The main representatives of this direction of Soviet photography can be called Semyon Fridland, and. The latter’s works are well known to many, since they were often published in party magazines and newspapers.

Shaikhet’s photographs in the 1930s graced the covers of Ogonyok, Moscow Proletary and Krasnaya Niva magazines. In his works, he tried to reflect the rapidly changing Russia, to reveal the features of a new era with the help of his own innovative techniques in the field of form. Arkady Shaikhet photographed the cheerful, smiling faces of workers, cadets and Komsomol members, who literally infected the viewer with their optimism and faith in a bright future. His photographs influenced people and contributed to the education of a new person, such as the Soviet regime wanted him to be.

Arkady Shaikhet’s favorite technique was the diagonal construction of the frame, with the help of which dynamism and transmission of movement were achieved, as well as the use of lower shooting angles to highlight the character in close-up and elevate him above the surrounding reality. To convey the scope of socialist construction, he often used photography from high points. Shaikhet has always been distinguished by his ability to build an ideal composition and compose a frame in such a way as to capture the essence of the moment.

He became one of the founders of the formation of the genre of documentary photo reporting in the Soviet Union, which many Soviet photographers subsequently turned to repeatedly. Among the famous photographic works of the Soviet master are such photographs as “Komsomolets at the helm”, “Uzbek under the new sun”, “Express”, “Dekhans go to the construction of the Karakum Canal” and others.

Avant-garde of Soviet photography

Finally, the last direction of photographic art, born in the 20s and 30s of the last century, can be called the Soviet photographic avant-garde. This direction is closely connected with the activities of the creative group “October” - a photo association of “leftist” photographers, organized in 1928 in Moscow. Representatives of the “October” group set themselves the task of creating new techniques for dynamic vision and original forms of photographic language. The association of young photographers embodied the innovation and powerful energy that was observed in the first post-revolutionary years. The main ideologists of the Soviet avant-garde in photography were Pavel Novitsky, Boris Kudoyarov and Elizar Langman.

Alexander Rodchenko was one of the leaders of the Oktyabr group. On his creative path, he spent a long time painting and even presented his abstract compositions at many exhibitions. But in the 20s, he turned to photography, and immediately tried to develop his own canons, which often ran counter to the traditional techniques of photography. Rodchenko took part in the design of the publication of Mayakovsky’s poem “About This”, took original photographs of the poet himself, throwing aside all the traditions of pavilion photography. His Portrait of a Mother, taken in 1924, has become a close-up classic. It was Alexander Rodchenko who first used multiple shots of a person in action in Soviet photography.

A characteristic feature of this innovator was also photographs taken at an unusual angle or from an unusual angle. Such photographs distorted and at the same time “revitalized” seemingly familiar objects. The talented photographer photographed architecture (the series “House on Myasnitskaya” and “House of Mosselprom”), unprecedented construction sites of socialism (for example, photographs dedicated to the construction of the White Sea Canal), and even the magical world of circus and sports. Moreover, he always did it in an unconventional way, shooting at strange angles and creating exciting, interesting shots.

Unfortunately, the Oktyabr group ceased to exist in the early 30s due to accusations of formalism. Representatives of the movement also could not avoid attacks from Soviet criticism. The work of Alexander Rodchenko and other Soviet avant-garde photographers has always raised certain questions in official circles. However, the “October” group certainly played a role in the development of Soviet photography, for several years being an apologist for the “proletarian” photography movement, whose leaders were Arkady Shaikhet and Max Alpert.

Soviet military photo report

During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet photographers and photojournalists devoted themselves entirely to the cause of the fight against Nazi Germany. The call “Everything for the front, everything for victory!” Representatives of photography followed, heading to the front line, to the “hottest” spots. Soviet photojournalists fought alongside the soldiers and took photographs at the same time, creating a real chronicle of the Great Patriotic War. The mobility of photographic equipment allowed photographers to accompany military units, filming episodes of city defense and offensive actions of the Soviet army. It was during this period that such a genre as Soviet military photo reporting appeared.

Among those who contributed to the emergence of a new direction in photography are the names of Max Alpert, Natalia Bode, Mark Markov-Grinberg, Yakov Ryumkin, Mikhail Savin and Evgeniy Khaldei. The talented photo reporter Max Alpert gained wide popularity back in the 30s, creating a documentary photo essay “24 hours in the life of the Filippov working-class family.” He developed the industrial theme in photography, taking photographs from large socialist construction sites and production facilities for the illustrated magazine “USSR on Construction”, founded by Maxim Gorky. During the Great Patriotic War, Max Alpert became a military photojournalist, working both in the rear and in combat situations. One of the most striking Soviet symbols of the war was Alpert’s photograph entitled “Combat”. His photographs from the front always had incredible emotional power. Take, for example, his photographic work “On the Roads of War,” also known as “Return from Captivity,” or the photograph “On the Front Line,” which is a real documentary picture of the battle on the North Caucasus Front.

The most prominent representative of Soviet military photo reporting, of course, is TASS photojournalist on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. With his Leica camera, he covered all 1418 days of the war and the enormous distance from Murmansk to Berlin. Two photographs by Yevgeny Khaldei are known to almost every person - this is the legendary photograph “The Banner over the Reichstag”, taken in May 1945 and which became a symbol of victory, and the photograph “The First Day of the War”, taken in Moscow on June 22, 1941. Khaldei became a true classic of Soviet military photo reporting; his photographs were used as illustrations for numerous textbooks and documentary books. Suffice it to say that photographs of the Soviet master were presented as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Evgeny Khaldey perfectly knew how to add expressiveness to any shot, without shying away from making small productions.

The rise of reportage and artistic photography

After Stalin's repressions, the Great Patriotic War and the difficult post-war period, the 60s in the Soviet Union became a time of hope and a revival of the spirit of freedom. With the beginning of the 60s, reportage and artistic photography began to experience an unprecedented heyday. In the art of photography, staged shots began to be replaced by “pure” reporting, when ordinary people with their undisguised joys and sorrows of life fell into the camera lens. Soviet photographers from the 60s to the 80s. began to show increasing interest in the ordinary person, his personal experiences and state of mind.

Photographic art of this period is also characterized by a surge of interest in innovative experiments and free creativity. Young artists sought to abandon in their photographic works excessive pathos, staging or declarativeness, which was inherent in the genre of Soviet photo reportage in the 30s. Close-ups, unusual angles, reportage shots without false optimism - it was during this period that real artistic photography was born in the Soviet Union, in which there was a place for romance, feelings, irony and humor.

From 1969 to 1975, the exhibition “USSR: Country and People in Artistic Photographs” was held all over the world with great success, one of the organizers of which was Nikolai Drachinsky. The exhibition featured hundreds of photographic works from a wide variety of Soviet photographers. Late Soviet culture, which allowed the citizens of the USSR to be a little more free, turned classic reportage photography into artistic photography. Soviet photographers of the 60s and 70s were no longer afraid of bold creative experiments and worked in a variety of genres, from photojournalism to experimental photography. It was during these years that numerous technical innovations began to appear in Soviet photography, and the genres of photography and photo essays became relevant. The main leitmotif of the new generation of photographers, among whom we can note, for example, Alexander Abaza, was the desire to reflect a person and the surrounding reality not within the framework of generally accepted canons, but on the basis of direct impressions and creative ideas.

Memories of Soviet photography were gradually lost in modern Russia, in these twenty-odd years of glossy magazines and creative freedom. However, the connection between eras is never interrupted. Throughout the Soviet period of history, photography continued to develop, new technical techniques were invented, new genres and ways of displaying reality appeared. Photographs by Alexander Rodchenko, Arkady Shaikhet, Max Alpert, Boris Ignatovich and other masters of Soviet photography give us today a unique opportunity to see documentary evidence of history and evaluate how Soviet photography developed over time.

- talking about the wonderful and wonderful life in this country, they illustrate their articles with staged pictures from Soviet visual propaganda, and most often these are not even photos, but artistic drawings from propaganda posters - here are happy Soviet citizens coming to a store bursting with food, here They are offered a choice of ten cars for free, but they are persuaded to move into a ten-room apartment with a view of the Kremlin for free. It’s not life, but raspberries - just have time to open your mouth and catch the candies falling from the sky.

However, real life in the USSR was far from these fantasies - and to see it, you need to look not at drawings, but at photographs of that era. Today I will show you photographs of professional Soviet photographers who, in their free time from work, were engaged in everyday photography - and at one time were forced to destroy part of their photo archives for accusations of “denigrating socialist reality.”

The photographers' names are Vladimir Sokolaev, Vladimir Vorobyov and Alexander Trofimov - they created the creative group "TRIVA", worked as photographers at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant, plus they filmed everything that was happening around; The main principle of the photographers’ work was this: a complete rejection of retouching and staged shots.

02. One of the most famous photographs of “TRIVA”, taken in Novokuznetsk in 1982, is called “glass container receivers”. Looking at this photo, for some reason I remember a sad aphorism - “everything was great in the USSR, it’s just a pity that bottles were only accepted without labels.”

03. And this photo is called “New settlement of the Ordzhenikidze district”, taken in 1984. As you can see, the reality is somewhat different from the staged posters, where a happy family on a sunny day drives into a brand new entrance with a perfect lawn all around.

04. A team of isolation workers on an afternoon rest, 1978. An excellent photo that should sober up all fans of the USSR who dream of returning there and “eating the best ice cream and crab sticks in the world.” Life in the USSR is not ice cream and candy at all, but everyday hard work, the safety of which no one really thought about. Pay attention to the figures of the workers - they are so plump not because they eat a lot, but because they constantly work with harmful substances.

05. "Shift leaving the Raspadskaya mine." I don’t know what you see in this photo - I only see emaciated and tired people, not at all like the always cheerful and clean workers from Soviet propaganda films. Well, do you already want to go “back to the USSR” and climb into the mine?

06. And the photographers called this picture “Smoke break on a gas cylinder” (actually an oxygen cylinder, but that’s not the point). As they say - no comments.

07. So, now let's look at transport, the picture is called "Central Market on Kurako Street" and was taken in 1983. Pay attention to the dirty and somewhat crumpled bus...

08. And here is a broken down personal car, a photo from 1981. There were no normal car services in those years, and in fact every motorist had to be both a car mechanic, a car mechanic, and an electrical engineer; in one immortal text about how to “go back to the USSR,” among other things, it was proposed to buy some old car and constantly repair it.

09. "Elder sister. Novokuznetsk Airport" - photograph from 1979. The girl has to sit outside with her things and her younger brother.

10. Several photographs of real Soviet trade. In the title photo in the post, store workers are apparently cutting up some kind of cow carcasses (right on the ground), but this shot is called “selling lamb bones.” Would you buy this now? And in the USSR, as you can see, even for such rubbish, sold in unsanitary conditions, there was a queue...

11. A very scary photo from 1984, called “Soup Set” - a grandmother is forced to chop some tripe for soup - on some log in the yard, covered with the Pravda newspaper.

12. And this is street trading in some scarce melons.

13. People in line. No comments.

14. "TRIVA" also has amazing footage dedicated to. This shot, taken in 1985, is called “Parents’ Day in the Pioneer Camp” - people are kept behind closed gates. Well, do you already want to go back there? In my opinion, the photo strongly resembles the atmosphere of some kind of prison.

15. Another camp, the photo is called “Punishment”. In Soviet camps, kindergartens, etc. It was a common punishment when a child, for some minor offense, was forced to stand naked for a long time in one place - either in a corner, or behind a door, or vice versa in the center of the room. Would you send your child to a camp where some fat little woman would mock him like that?

16. School “practice”, more reminiscent of the dreary life of some construction battalion - schoolchildren in light clothes scoop out a giant puddle with shovels. I’m sure everyone has wet feet and a third will have a fever tomorrow - of course, “there will be no one to blame for this.”

17. But this photo may be scarier than all the previous ones combined. The picture was taken in 1983 and is titled “Department of Pediatric Orthopedics. Waiting to see a doctor.” The question is why in a “great country” that makes rockets, as well as in the field of ballet, etc. Children's hospitals look like THIS, I'll leave it for you.

18. Surreal photo of a courtyard stage. “We will implement the decisions of the 26th Congress of the CPSU,” “We support and approve the peace program.”

19. Now I’ll show you a few more photographs of workers’ leisure time, but first, this - some grandfather is digging through a mountain of discarded rotten cabbage - the cabbage was dumped under the windows of some (most likely) hostel. In the background is a giant fresco of Lenin.

20. “Maslenitsa on Lenin Square” - photograph taken in Novokuznetsk in 1983. A line of “sufferers” lined up for cheap fortified wine, which, apparently, will be drunk right here - this is evidenced by the disposable cups placed on the bottles by one of the buyers.

21. But this is already the process of consuming “strong drinks”. In the background of the photo, most likely, there is some local House of Culture.

22. The terrible consequences of these “alcohol sales” and the generally tolerant attitude towards drunks in the USSR - a very young guy is lying on the path in the park, a hundred-gram glass and bread remained on the bench to “sniff”. Children are playing in the background as if nothing had happened...

24. And here's another one. Everything in this photo is scary - a young man who has drunk himself to the point of insensibility and is lying on the asphalt, an indifferent crowd around, not paying any attention to him, and a couple sitting right at the feet of an unconscious body and eating.

25. Then these people will be told about how “the West, according to Dulles’ plan, solders the USSR” and that in our country, unlike capitalist states, “all power belongs to the people.”

In one of the interviews, photographer Vladimir Sokolaev, answering the question of whether he would like to return back to the USSR, replied: “No, I don’t want to. I’ve already been there. Why step on the same rake twice? Maybe for someone and once is not enough, but for me it was enough. If these pictures do not convince people that they don’t need to go back there anymore, then for God’s sake, let them step on this rake someday.”

Would you like to return to one like this?

In fact, ratings are not a rewarding thing and are very subjective. When summing up the best of the best in rating lists, we still use some kind of inner tuning fork. We also decided to make our own ranking list of the 10 greatest Soviet photographers, according to the site.

Let us immediately note that the list will include several photographers who worked long before the formation of the Union of Soviets, however, their influence on the development of photography, both Soviet and world, is so great that it was simply impossible to say anything about them. And also, taking into account the subjectivity of this list, we tried to reflect in it the brightest representatives in each individual photographic genre.

The first place in our ranking undoubtedly belongs to. This is the greatest figure of culture and art. His influence on the development of Soviet art cannot be overestimated. He concentrated on himself all the fine arts of the young country of the Soviets - he was a sculptor, an artist, a graphic designer, and a photographer. Considered one of the founders of constructivism. Rodchenko is a universal and multifaceted figure. It became an effective impetus for the development of photography and design. His methods of constructive construction of photographs are used as canons.

In second position is the Russian photographer of the early 20th century, Georgy Goyningen-Hüne. Despite the fact that Georgy spent his entire professional life and activity in France, England and the USA, he is still Russian by origin. And in this case, he serves as an example of how immigrants from Russia achieved recognition and success abroad. Georgiy is one of the greatest fashion photographers of the 20s and 30s. By 1925, he became the chief photographer of French Vogue. In 1935 - American Harper's Bazaar. In 1943, two of his books were published, after which all his photographic attention concentrated on Hollywood celebrities.

The contribution of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky to the development of photographic art is great. Prokudin-Gorsky was a chemist and a photographer, and his occupation helped him improve the other. He went down in history as the first experimenter to propose the possibility of creating color photography in Russia. The method of acquiring color in a photograph that Prokudin-Gorsky used was not new. It was proposed back in 1855 by James Maxwell; it involved the superposition of three negatives, each passed through a filter of a certain color - red, green and blue. These three negatives, superimposed on each other, produce a color image in projection. Today, thanks to Prokudin-Gorsky, we have the opportunity to see Russia at the beginning of the 20th century in color.

Continuing our top ten greats is the Soviet military photographer, the author of two of the greatest, iconic photographs of the Great Patriotic War - “The First Day of the War” and “The Banner over the Reichstag” - Evgeniy Khaldei. As a war photographer, Khaldei went through the entire Great Patriotic War, and his most significant works were made in the period from 1941 to 1946. Chaldea's photographs are filled with a sense of historical importance. It is no secret that many of the photographer’s works, including the work “The Banner over the Reichstag,” were staged. Khaldei believed that photography should convey the spirit of the times and events as fully as possible, therefore there was no need to rush. The author approached the creation of each work responsibly and thoroughly.

Our list continues with the classic of photographic journalism - Boris Ignatovich. Ignatovich was a close friend and associate of Alexander Rodchenko, with whom he organized the photographic association “October Group” in the late 1920s. It was a time of aspiration and search for new forms. Creative people, as a rule, were fruitful in several directions at the same time. So Ignatovich was a photographer, a photojournalist, a documentary filmmaker, a journalist, and an illustrator.

Next comes the greatest Soviet portrait photographer -. Nappelbaum went down in the history of photography as an unsurpassed studio portrait photographer. Nappelbaum, a master of compositional solutions, had a surprising and original approach to light composition, in which all the viewer’s attention is concentrated on the person being portrayed. As in the case of , through whose studio all the foreign celebrities of the 20th century passed, the greatest representatives of the Soviet country, right up to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, passed through Nappelbaum’s lens. Nappelbaum enjoyed enormous success and popularity as a good photographer. It is noteworthy that it was he who was invited to photograph the place of death of the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.

The first Russian landscape photographer, Vasily Sokornov, continues our list of ten great Soviet photographers. One of the first landscape painters who captured the beauty of Russian nature, and primarily Crimea, with a camera, was an artist by education and a photographer by vocation - Vasily Sokornov. Sokornov’s works were extremely popular during the photographer’s lifetime. Just like the works of Sokornov, who spent his entire life photographing the nature of Virginia, Sokornov’s works are mostly dedicated to the Crimea. They were published in magazines and postcards were sent all over Russia. Today he is considered the main chronicler of Crimean nature in the first decades of the 20th century.

The founder of Russian, Soviet journalistic, social photography, Maxim Dmitriev, occupies the eighth position in our rating. Dmitriev's life and work is a story of incredible rise and equally incredible fall. A native of the Tambov province, a student at a parochial school, by the early 1900s, Dmitriev became a leading photographer in Moscow. The founder of the photo studio, through which the leading people of the time pass - Ivan Bunin, Fedr Chaliapin, Maxim Gorky. But we love and remember Dmitriev for his chronicle photographs of the Volga region. They contain the original life and way of life of Russia, skillfully noted by the brilliant photographer. The downfall of Dmitriev was the coming to power of the Bolsheviks and widespread dispossession. By the early 1930s, the artist's photographic studio had been selected, along with more than seven thousand magnificent local history photographs.

Arkady Shaikhet was born in 1898, he was only 19 years old when the revolution in Russia shocked the world. After the war, he continued to refine his technique from feature reporting to documentary.
Photo: Arkady Shaikhet

Hands of a manicurist, 1929

After the founding of the magazine “Soviet Photo”, the works of many authors focused on the development of such photo series were published under the headings “photo reports” and “amateur photography”.
Photo: Arkady Shaikhet

Technology is everything, 1930s

Diagonal composition and bold framing can be attributed to the techniques characteristic of the association of “leftist” photographers from the “October” collective, who were guided by the motto: “New times require new forms.”
Photo: October

Youth, 1937

This photograph by Boris Ignatovich demonstrates how later photographers moved towards socialist realism. It was understood that the photographs were not just supposed to reflect reality, but to show the communist ideal.
Photo: Boris Ignatovich

Diet Eggs, 1939

The pioneer of still life photography, Alexander Khlebnikov, was one of the founders of the Novator photo club. This image of a plate of eggs was part of a series of object photographs he took throughout the 1930s, ranging from pumpkin seeds to milk bottles.
Photo: Alexander Khlebnikov

Enemy, 1944

With the outbreak of World War II, photojournalism began to defend the Fatherland. This photo of Anatoly Egorov, who was wounded in battle, shows Corporal Stepan Vasilyevich Ovcharenko shooting at enemy troops with a Maxim machine gun.
Photo: Anatoly Egorov

Meeting of the winners. Return from the front, 1945

Georgy Petrusov, a master of Soviet photography who collaborated with leading artist Alexander Rodchenko and director Sergei Eisenstein, captured the delight of crowds at the end of World War II. Rodchenko said about Petrusov: “He is like a sponge that absorbs everything related to photography.”
Photo: Georgy Petrusov

Concrete plant, 1954

After the war, Vsevolod Tarasevich returned to photography, working for the magazines “Soviet Union”, “Ogonyok”, “Rabotnitsa”, as well as “Soviet Photo”. Most of his photographs are related to the achievements of science and technology.
Photo: Vsevolod Tarasevich

Perfume No. 8, 1958

This image of Alexander Khlebnikov demonstrates trends in fashion and advertising photography in the 1950s.
Photo: Soviet photo

Start, 1959

A photo from an article about the production of a new camera model – “Start”.
Photo: Vladimir Stepanov

In the physics laboratory, 1960

Anatoly Khrupov was another photographer who was guided by the achievements of Soviet science. Here he captured a technician at work in a laboratory at Vilnius University in Lithuania.
Photo: Photo gallery named after the Lumiere brothers

Twelfth Symphony, 1961

This portrait of the famous composer Dmitri Shostakovich represents a shift in Soviet reportage photography. Vsevolod Tarasevich found out where the composer rested during a break between performances and took a picture with a hidden camera, abandoning staged shooting in favor of the truthfulness and sincerity of the frame.
Photo: Vsevolod Tarasevich

Duel, 1963

The political thaw of the 1960s brought with it new energy to photography. This image is from Vsevolod Tarasevich’s series “Moscow State University”.
Photo: Vsevolod Tarasevich

Khrushchev and Castro have lunch at the Guripsh collective farm in Georgia, 1963

Cuban leader Fidel Castro traveled through the USSR for 38 days. He was the only statesman to travel throughout the country. This event was widely covered in the Soviet press. Among the photographers who were allowed to photograph political leaders was Vasily Egorov, who took this wonderful shot during the lunch of top officials on a Georgian collective farm.
Photo: Vasily Egorov

Gymnastics-I, Universiade, Moscow, 1973

This collage of four different photographs is the result of an experiment with form and abstraction by Alexander Abaza, who turned gymnastic exercises into an alphabet of gestures.
Photo: Alexander Abaza

Tales of the Sea, 1976

Lithuanian photographer Vitaly Butyrin draws on the rich Soviet history, often using surreal photomontage. This image was part of a series called "Tales of the Sea"
Photo: Vitaly Butyrin

Behind the scenes of the Bolshoi Theater, 1983

This is a photograph from the series “Behind the Scenes of the Bolshoi Ballet,” which brought Vladimir Vyatkin a prize in the World Press Photo competition.
Photo: Vladimir Vyatkin