Abstract:

This paper examines the discourse surrounding photography and portraiture in Soviet propaganda of the 1930s. More than any other visual medium, photography both recorded and constructed the transformations of the tumultuous early Soviet period; as a result, the field of photographic production was meticulously calibrated and overseen by Soviet institutions. Across magazines, newspapers, exhibitions, and photobooks, photographs that circulated in the public sphere were repeatedly celebrated for their ability to operate on two registers simultaneously: presenting the specificity of individual historical actors while also demonstrating more generally the symbolic blossoming made possible by socialist revolution. Indeed, the striking coexistence of fact and symbol became key to formulating photography’s unique contributions to the aesthetic program of Socialist Realism. Yet despite embracing the photographic medium’s specificity and modernity, an anxiety of influence permeates debates in this period, as photographers and painters alike remained deeply preoccupied by each other’s work. They persistently turned to historicism as they publicly disavowed “leftist” formalism and attempted to articulate their aesthetic goals. I compare the editorial framing of photographic portraits published in the 1930s in Sovetskoe Foto, SSSR Na Stroike, Pravda Vostoka, and 10 let Uzbekistana with discussions of portraiture from the Union of Artists of Uzbekistan and plans for exhibitions preserved in the Central State Archive in Tashkent. This visual and textual corpus reveals how interrelated different media were in their search for political forms during this period. At the same time, photography’s documentary specificity also made it the primary target for censorship in the aftermath of the Stalinist purges, as symbolic gestures and historical contingency converged on individual faces in a reconfigured struggle over representation.