The USSR of the 30s and 40s in the iconic works of Boris Ignatovich

It is difficult to divide the photo works of talented masters in Soviet times into reports and a work of art. The photographs created by them usually tell us about certain historical events, while at the same time representing aesthetic value. And the best proof of this is the work of the Soviet photographer Boris Ignatovich.

It was Zoshchenko's photograph that became Boris Ignatovich's first on his photographic path. He films a satirical writer buying apples. The picture was published in 1923 in the magazine "Smekhach". Then the author became really interested in photography and began to study the technique of shooting, the properties of optics and the features of photographic materials.

"Chess Tournament"

"Kazachka"

"Employees"

A few years later, the photographer was already a member of the famous October group (besides him, Alexander Rodchenko, Elizar Langman, Dmitry Debatov, etc. were in the group). The new techniques used by the October group provoked criticism from adherents of traditional photographic art: most often they were accusations of formalism and imitation of "bourgeois culture".

Sharp angles, dizzying tilts of the frame, the "skew" of the composition caused rejection and misunderstanding among fans of classics.

"Youth in New Moscow", 1936

Members of "October" constantly polemicized with the "Russian Association of Proletarian Photographers" (ROPF), who glorified the happy life of Soviet people under socialism. Ignatovich wrote in the magazine "Proletarian Photo" that ROPF replaced "the real reality, the documentary of the Soviet photo reportage with a sugary picture and pose."

The attacks of the apologists of proletarian photography forced him to go into the cinema for a while. Ignatovich became a cinematographer: he participated in the filming of one of the first Soviet sound films, The Olympiad of Arts. Then he created a new photo group - the Ignatovich Brigade, well known in the mid-1930s.

"Our answer"

"Elimination of the fist as a class"

"Asphalting the street"

"Everyone to the polls!"

"Bathers"

"In the hall of the VII Komsomol Conference"

"Stalin and Mamlakat"

"On a warm stove"

"Pioneers and street children"

"Tea party in Ramenskoye"

"At the Hermitage"

Boris Pasternak and Korney Chukovsky, 1935

"Exercises", 1943

With the beginning of the war, Boris Vsevolodovich went to the front. He filmed for an army newspaper, was on the front line, took part in raids behind the front line, flew by plane to the partisans. His pictures of the war years were included in the anthology of the Soviet military photo reportage.

In a concentration camp, 1944

Thanks to Boris Ignatovich's unique photographs, today we can judge about the past of our country, about the life of the people in the first half of the XX century and during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War. Ignatovich and his colleagues took reportage photography to a whole new level, expanding traditional ideas about this genre of photographic art.