Russia in the era of revolutions and the Civil War. 1917-1922

The presented publication by means of documentary photography and newsreels clearly and comprehensively demonstrates the images of the Russian state and society to the modern reader, which developed during the years of the most difficult tests of the period of the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and the bloody events of the Civil War of 1918-1922.
Analysis of the literature of the last 25 years dedicated to the topic of the Civil War in Russia revealed a significant lack of publications that would reflect the events of that time in visual images and film photochronics. The author’s team of this publication set himself the goal of replenishing this gap.
The authors-compilers fully implemented the task of an impartial show of actors of civil conflict, who were on opposite sides of the front. Through photographs, photo reports and frames of newsreel, it was possible to reveal the variegated images of the participants of the events of 1917-1922: Red, Belykh, anarchists, interventionists and nationalists of all stripes.
The most difficult thing was to overcome the usual tradition of presenting the material based on the views of only one of the parties to the conflict - white or red, but as a result, this tendency managed to cope. In addition, the presented documentary material was added to the most wide involvement of funds for photographs of state archives and private assemblies of the intervention countries in Russia, including not only European countries, but also the United States.
On the pages of the publication, more than 500 photographs and frames of newsreels from Russia, Europe and the USA were first collected together. The published photo and films have double value, combining both the quality of the works of photography, and the properties of a documentary source, which is a photographically accurate image of the "Russia washed." Until recently, individual photographs were not familiar with the domestic audience and were previously published only in the little-known white emigrant or foreign press in the 1920s-1930s. All this allows you to see the era of 1917-1922. In a new way, otherwise, what was customary in Soviet historiography, when the national tragedy was served in the heroic-romantic halo, and the catastrophic consequences remained behind the scenes.
Responsible compiler: Litvin A.A