Scan barcode
A review by lauren_endnotes
The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia by David King
5.0
▫️THE COMMISSAR VANISHES: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia by David King / 1997 by Metropolitan/Henry Holt and Co.
India ink blots over faces and bodies. Airbrushing. Painting and scribbling over. Scalpels and tears.
Defacements of a photograph and erasure of a life.
A consciousness. A history.
"Photographs for publication were retouched and restructured with airbrush and scalpel to make famous personalities vanish. Paintings, too, were withdrawn from museums and art galleries so the compromising faces could be blocked out of portraits."
The books title refers specifically to the erasure of 'Commissar' Leon Trotsky, who alongside Vladimir Lenin lead the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. He infamously clashed with Joseph Stalin and was exiled and later assassinated in Mexico. Stalin campaigned to erase all images and mentions of Trotsky.
Of course, Trotsky wasn't the only one erased. Faces and names of many citizens were expunged from the records for any number of perceived infractions, and the actual people were sent to gulags, or executed outright. Even owning a book that had not been properly censored could land the owner in the gulag.
David King, a British historian and graphic designer, began collecting these censored photographs and artworks, and seeking out any publications that may have missed the knife or the brush. He amassed the large collection that makes up this book. He also details the 'cult of Stalin' and the use of visual propoganda in the Stalin Era.
The book is primarily a visual resource, but includes a good preface and introduction, detailed captions, and a bibliography with many historical notes.
A fascinating, devastating, and chilling reading experience.
King speaks of censor agents (usually unassuming elderly women) going to libraries and book stores to ensure that each new erasure was followed. They'd bring a bin with them, removing books, and inking or scalpeling out faces in photographs. Books were removed and destroyed directly, or locked into a Soviet archive, deemed not suitable for the public. For anyone who owned books in their own home, they were also expected to comply and blot or deface. Unfortunately, this also went for family photographs - faces and looking bodies removed from time and memory.
I learned of this book many years ago in a history class, and later was reminded in library school courses. Anthony Marra's novel, The Tsar of Love and Techno, includes a storyline of a character who retouched and repaints photographs and art in Stalin's Russia. The final nudge to go ahead and read it in entirety came after reading Tatyana Tolstaya's review of it in her outstanding Pushkin's Children: Writing on Russia and Russians collection that I read in August. Highly recommend both Marra and Tolstaya!
"Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
-George Orwell
India ink blots over faces and bodies. Airbrushing. Painting and scribbling over. Scalpels and tears.
Defacements of a photograph and erasure of a life.
A consciousness. A history.
"Photographs for publication were retouched and restructured with airbrush and scalpel to make famous personalities vanish. Paintings, too, were withdrawn from museums and art galleries so the compromising faces could be blocked out of portraits."
The books title refers specifically to the erasure of 'Commissar' Leon Trotsky, who alongside Vladimir Lenin lead the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. He infamously clashed with Joseph Stalin and was exiled and later assassinated in Mexico. Stalin campaigned to erase all images and mentions of Trotsky.
Of course, Trotsky wasn't the only one erased. Faces and names of many citizens were expunged from the records for any number of perceived infractions, and the actual people were sent to gulags, or executed outright. Even owning a book that had not been properly censored could land the owner in the gulag.
David King, a British historian and graphic designer, began collecting these censored photographs and artworks, and seeking out any publications that may have missed the knife or the brush. He amassed the large collection that makes up this book. He also details the 'cult of Stalin' and the use of visual propoganda in the Stalin Era.
The book is primarily a visual resource, but includes a good preface and introduction, detailed captions, and a bibliography with many historical notes.
A fascinating, devastating, and chilling reading experience.
King speaks of censor agents (usually unassuming elderly women) going to libraries and book stores to ensure that each new erasure was followed. They'd bring a bin with them, removing books, and inking or scalpeling out faces in photographs. Books were removed and destroyed directly, or locked into a Soviet archive, deemed not suitable for the public. For anyone who owned books in their own home, they were also expected to comply and blot or deface. Unfortunately, this also went for family photographs - faces and looking bodies removed from time and memory.
I learned of this book many years ago in a history class, and later was reminded in library school courses. Anthony Marra's novel, The Tsar of Love and Techno, includes a storyline of a character who retouched and repaints photographs and art in Stalin's Russia. The final nudge to go ahead and read it in entirety came after reading Tatyana Tolstaya's review of it in her outstanding Pushkin's Children: Writing on Russia and Russians collection that I read in August. Highly recommend both Marra and Tolstaya!
"Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
-George Orwell