Ambiguous Narratives: African Identity in Soviet Amateur Photography

• In Event: Negotiating the Colonial Gaze: Russian and Soviet Visual Culture in Domestic and International Contexts

Abstract

I focus on the perception of African identity in the Soviet Union, specifically examining how ordinary Soviet citizens viewed blackness, which was not always aligned with the officially declared Soviet ideology of internationalism and racial equality. I explore amateur photographs taken by Soviet citizens who travelled to Africa for professional or military purposes. My argument is that these photographic records, created by engineers, medical staff, biologists, geologists, teachers, military officers, and others, both construct and visualize their attitudes toward Africans. In doing so, these images offer insights into what laid beneath the surface of the official ideology of Soviet-African friendship.

Author

• Denis Skopin, Bard College Berlin (Germany)