Press Photography as Index and Image of Modernity: The Case of Iskry (1901-1917)

• In Event: Photography and Modernity in the Late Tsarist and Soviet Empires

Abstract

This paper examines the press photography in the Russian magazine, Iskry. I am interested how photographers and editors collaborated to create a modern brand, which captured an image of Russia as a European, politically progressive nation. I will argue that this portrait, which focused on politics and the Empire’s first dalliance with democracy, established new expectations of openness and accountability on public figures, and engaged Iskry’s reading public by equating political activism with a type of consumerism.

Author

• Christopher I. Stolarski, Oberlin College