Photographic literacy : cameras in the hands of Russian authors

337 Pages·2018·33.072 MB·English

by  Katherine M. H. Reischl

PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERACY

PHOTOGR APHIC
LITER ACY
CAMERAS IN THE HANDS OF RUSSIAN AUTHORS
Katherine M. H. Reischl
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
This publication is made possible in part from the Barr Ferree
Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art and
Archaeology, Princeton University.
Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this
book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher. For infor-
mation, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512
East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at
cornellpress.cornell.edu.
First published 2018 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Reischl, Katherine M. H., author.
Title: Photographic literacy : cameras in the hands of Russian
authors / Katherine M. H. Reischl.
Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press,
2018. | “This publication is made possible in part from the
Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department
of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.” | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018016114 (print) | LCCN 2018022874
(ebook) | ISBN 9781501730481 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501730498
(epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501724367 | ISBN 9781501724367
(cloth ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Literature and photography—Russia—
History—20th century. | Literature and photography—Soviet
Union—History. | Russian literature—20th century—History
and criticism. | Photography in literature.
Classification: LCC PG3020.5.P436 (ebook) | LCC
PG3020.5.P436 R45 2018 (print) | DDC 891.709/357—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016114
Cover illustrations: El Lissitzky, Portrait of Ehrenburg (with
camera and typewriter, photomontage) for Moi Parizh, 1933.
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Background underlay
by Alexander Rodchenko from the journal Daesh (Let’s give),
no. 14 (1929); page title, “Soviet Automobile.” © 2018 Estate of
Alexander Rodchenko / RAO, Moscow / VAGA at ARS, NY.
FOR JONATHAN AND MARGARET

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xv
Note on Transliteration and Translation xvii
Introduction: Chasing Pushkin’s Photograph 1
1. Tolstoy in the Age of His Technological Reproducibility 21
2. The Diffusion of Domesticated Photography 53
3. Microgeography, Macroworld 101
4. Look Left, Young Man! The International Exchange
of Photo-Narratives 147
Conclusion: Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and the Anxiety
of Photographic Authorship 201
Notes 231
Index 291
Color plates at end of e-book.

ILLUSTRATIONS
0.1. “Pushkin, a beard fragment” 5
0.2. “Double of A. S. Pushkin,” Solntse Rossii , no. 6 (1912) 6
0.3. “ Overexposed Pushkin” 8
0.4. A lexander Rodchenko, cover for Zhurnalist ,
no. 3 (1930) 9
1.1. S ergei Levitsky, portrait of Alexander Herzen (1861) 26
1.2. S ergei Levitsky, portrait of “Herzen versus
Herzen” (1865) 27
1.3. A ndrei Karelin, family in a living room, from his
“Artistic Album of Photography from Nature” (ca. 1880s) 29
1.4. “ Dzhigets. On the Eastern Shore of the Black Sea” from
The Album of Photographic Portraits of the August
Persons and Figures Known in Russia (1865) 32
1.5. Sergei Levitsky, “Lev Tolstoy” (1856) 35
1.6. A nonymous portrait of Lev Tolstoy from a
daguerreotype (1854) 36
1.7. Lev Tolstoy, self-portrait at Yasnaya Polyana with autograph,
“I took this myself” (1862) 39