The Commissar Vanishes
The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia
David King ; preface by Stephen F. Cohen ; photographs from the David King collection

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Author(s)

Stephen F. Cohen

Editor(s)

David King

Publication

Edinburgh : Canongate Books, 1997

Scope

192 Pages, illustrated, 30 cm.

ISBN

0862417244

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In Stalinist Russia, it was commonplace for Soviet history to be rewritten with inconvenient participants removed--often men or women who had aided the Communist Revolution in the early days and then had somehow fallen afoul of Stalin himself. In The Commissar Vanishes, English art historian David King assembles an impressive body of photographs and artwork that shows the process whereby a hero could overnight be made into villain. "The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence," King rightly notes.

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Keywords

photography

Location

Cabinet 12 - 4: Documentaire Fotografie ; Journalistiek

Remarks

Incl. Bibliographical References