One thing to read about war, quite another to see her. Even eyes ocevidcev photographers that have passed the Great Patriotic war together with soldiers. A visual chronicle of the second world war gives us a chance to understand and comprehend a difficult time, to perhaps better understand his own. To see the war through the prism of the lenses of the witnesses of the events will allow online project of the Multimedia Art Museum, “Our Victory — 75”, which starts may 9 and runs until June 24 – the day when in 1945 in Moscow’s red square hosted the first Victory Parade. On the eve of the start of the project we published several unique stories and cardies that the Museum provided specially for “MK”.
Visual chronicle, assembled MAMMA, will present 75 of videos, created on the basis of wartime photos, 25 photo exhibitions, short films dedicated to war photographers, extracts from newsreels of the war years, as well as photographs from the family archives of the WWII. It is worth noting that an important part of the project was the search for the lost names of war photographers and the reconstruction of their biographies. Some pictures so far almost nothing is known, other listed only the name and surname of the author. The war claimed millions of lives, but it is important to preserve the memory: every war photographer — and every soldier fighting at the front — cannot and should not be forgotten.
Here we present some photos and stories were restored and published years after the war ended.
“Mountain” with a delay
During the Kerch-Feodosiya landing operation, the Soviet troops for a short time freed from the invaders of the Kerch Peninsula. 30 Dec 1941, they found Bagerovsky a ditch, a place of execution by the German occupiers of several thousand civilians. After a few days arrived at the scene, investigators and photojournalists, catching a heartbreaking picture of how heartbroken local woman searching for relatives among lying in the snow dead.
Most of the front shots of Dmitry Baltermants was first printed only during the Khrushchev thaw. Just then the photographer comes international recognition: in particular, in 1964 a solo exhibition baltermanta in London, and in 1965 — in new York.
Arrived in Moscow in the 60-ies of the Italian photographer Caio Garruba found a forgotten shoot and persuaded the Baltermants show it at the exhibition “What is man?”. Together they came up with photos meaningful title “the Mountain”. However, its final form legendary the bought even later, in 1975, when Baltermants was to add a heavy cloud with a different frame. Then the picture was first shown in the USSR.
Random “Tchaikovsky”
Like many great pictures, this photograph��the FFL owes its existence to the occasion. Dmitri Baltermants, who accompanied the Soviet troops in Germany, was asked to take some pictures of soldiers that had something to send home. In a dilapidated house they found miraculously survived the piano and one of the soldiers started something to strum. The photographer just in case made the frame and together with the guys went to look for a more “heroic” background. It is unknown whether there is still those “heroic” shots, but “Tchaikovsky” became one of the most famous war photographer of the twentieth century — despite the fact that the photographer recognized the greatness of the picture for almost a decade after the creation, reviewing their archive films in the mid-50s.
“Barmaley” on the ruins
This picture was taken by Emmanuel Evzerikhin 23 August 1942 in Stalingrad, after another German air RAID. Amid the burning ruins of the city we see the ash-covered the fountain with a scene from the famous poetic tales “Barmaley” by Kornei Chukovsky:
Happy, happy, happy, happy children,
Danced, played around the campfire:
“You have,
we’re
saved From death,
You freed us.
You in time
we Saw,
kind
the Crocodile!“
the Photo immediately spread around the world, and the fountain has become one of the most prominent anti-war symbols of the twentieth century. His image can be seen not only in the films on the Second World (“enemy at the gates” and “Stalingrad”), but in “a Clockwork orange” by Stanley Kubrick or in the cult dystopian “V for vendetta” in which he illustrates the futility and brutality of any military conflict.
a Conversation in Murmansk, naletevshy to Berlin
About this picture, Yevgeny khaldei told in his book “From Murmansk to Berlin” (Murmansk book publishing house, 1979): “In June 1942, the Nazis decided to burn down the Murmansk. More than half of the wooden city that was dropped thousands of incendiary and high-explosive bombs, was on fire. In the fire killed the people at home.
Then, in June 1942, I met an old woman there. She was carrying a wooden suitcase — all that was left of home. I took a picture of her. The woman lowered my suitcase, sat down on it and accusingly said, “well, you take pictures of my grief, our unhappiness? Now, if I got a picture of our bombing Germany!”. I was embarrassed. “Yes, mother,’ I said, ‘ you’re right, of course. But I will probably have to do a shot like this”.
it took another three years of the war, in may 1945 on the streets of Berlin among the ruins I saw an old woman — and remember that, in Murmansk, and the conversation.
I approached the German woman, asked her who she was and where she was going. She said, “I don’t know who I am and where to go, and nothing I have left chromee that to me… And was home and family. All of this was. And now there is nothing.” Then, saying goodbye, he asked: “Why war? Why is all this needed?”.
