Soviet Photography Display at the Imperial War Museum North (Manchester, The Quays)
The_Look
the Imperial War Museum North, covering the exhibition of Soviet
photography from the RIA Novosti archive in London. This broadcast is
now archived, and you can listen to it by following the link in the
'Broadcast' section. One thing you are going to need is RealPlayer or
RealAlternative, which you can download right from the QT Radio page on
Superchannel.org,
http://superchannel.org/Home/Profile/Channels/QTR/
You can also follow the link to read my article about the programme and
exhibition. Needless to say, if you want to use any part of it, you
must not do so without my permission. But feel free to tell me what you
think.
A few words about the photographs that were selected for the display.
As my article says, there is no single photo of any of the Soviet
leaders, so don't expect to see Stalin at the Yalta conference or
Khrushchev in the UNO. There are also no photos of the Revolution days
in either Moscow or Petrograd, which in truth has more to do with the
contents of the archive. The famous pictures include the elevation of
the Soviet flag over the Reichstag; a political instructor Yeremenko
leading his soldiers in the battle; a portrait of Yuri Gagarin on his
return from space on 12th April 1961; a portrait of Harry Kasparov and
Anatoly Karpov at the World Chess Championship; a photo of Chernobyl.
In total, the exhibition tells the people's story and tracks the
history of Russia in the 20th c.. Russia appears as a country that in
just 44 years leaped forward and despite the decades of war, hunger and
famine became the country who sent the first man into space. In
addition, this exhibition clearly demonstrates the role of photography
in documenting people's life, as well as the potential of using it as a
historical source.