Photography

Photography

Bronze Horseman carries various kinds of books on photography published in Russia. Both specific studies, such as a catalogue of the work of Ivan Bianchi, the first photographer to systematically capture the cityscapes and street life of the Russian imperial capital, and general surveys, which outline the role of Russian photographers during the nineteenth century in the quickly evolving new medium, fill gaps in the history of photography. Some books are unprecedented for their research and extraordinary visual documentation (e.g., Russian Photography: The First Century of Photographic Art 1839-1940). Compilers of thematic monographs have delved into archives since the end of the Soviet period to publish photographs clustering around specific themes or events. Soviet photographers idealized Moscow in the first two decades of the Soviet regime as the capital of the new Socialist state (e.g., Moscow in Photographs, 1920s–1930). Soviet and German photographers captured many aspects of World War II, both brutal and humane (e.g., War Through the Camera Lens, 1941-1945: Photographs of Soviet and Foreign Correspondents from the Collection of the Russian State Archives of Cinematic and Photographic Documents). The work of experimental photographers and designers of the avant-garde makes up another stimulating category of photographic books (e.g., Great Stalinist Photographic Book, Photographic Illustration and Photomontage in Books for Children and Youths in the 1920s and 1930).