The Commissar Vanishes: Falsification of Photographs and Art in the Soviet Union - Hardcover

King, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0862417244 ISBN 13: 9780862417246

Publisher: Canongate Books, 1997

Synopsis

This volume looks at how Joseph Stalin manipulated the science of photography to further his own political career and to erase the memory of his victims. Over the past 30 years, author and photo-historian David King has assembled the world's largest archive of doctored photographs from the Soviet era, the best of which have been selected for this book. A 1919 photograph of a large crowd of Bolsheviks clustered around Lenin becomes, with the aid of an airbrush, an intimate portrait of Lenin and Stalin sitting alone, and then, in its final version, Stalin by himself. In another, a victim of the purges is replaced by a ghostly Corinthian pillar. In a third, Trostsky is removed from Lenin's side on the occasion of one of the early Bolshevik rallies as was his photograph from almost every book in every library in Russia. According to officialdom Trostsky simply didn't exist. In each case, the juxtaposition of the original and the doctored image yields a terrifying - and often tragically funny - insight into a dark period of history. The end result is an illuminating record which reveals how easily history can be distorted.

About this title

Review:

"Rarely if ever has what George Orwell fancifully called 'the memory hole' received the kind of stunning real-life elaboration it gets in "The Commissar Vanishes". This lush volume is a fascinating and sobering study of the rewriting of history."-Richard Bernstein, "New York Times" "King has done a remarkable, meticulous job....An incomparable volume....This extraordinary combination of tragedy and farce, which evokes strong, mixed emotions, makes King's album a work of art."-Tatyana Tolstaya, "The New York Review of Books" "Brilliant, fascinating, sinister and hilarious."-Richard Lourie, " New York Times Book Review" "A photographic expert, King has scored a striking success....Overwhelmingly instructive."-Robert Conquest, " Los Angeles Time Book Review"

About the Author:

During the past three decades, author and photo-historian David King has assembled the world’s largest archive of doctored photographs, posters, and painting from the Soviet era. King began his collection during a trip to Russia in 1970, when he discovered that thousands of images of Stalin’s victims had been lost to posterity—either by design or neglect. His collection has grown to more than a quarter million images, the best of which have been selected for The Commissar Vanishes.

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0862417244
• ISBN 13: 9780862417246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192