Translated material
Berlin-1945
In 2017, photo projects on colta.ru will be divided into several blocks. In the second of them, called the “archive”, various types of “archival” images will be presented: photographic series of little -known authors of the recent past, the archives and modern works found and released recently, only mimicating under the archival chronicle or installationly invading the old image. The archive will never become out of the way!
The Ukrainian photographer Arthur Bondar accidentally came across Facebook on a unique archive of military photographs and is now trying to preserve the memory of its author.
Arthur Bondar
In August 2016, I saw a post on Facebook on the sale of front -line negatives of the Soviet photographer from the Second World War. I wrote to the seller, and the next day we met to see the negatives. The price of the archive was very high, but due to the fact that I had money from the successfully sold my book “Shadows of the Star Polyn” , I was able to purchase this unique archive. I also learned the name of the photographer - Valery Dolzonovo - and the history of the archive.
When Valery Dolzonsky died, his wife carefully looked after the archive. And when, in turn, the wife died, the archive holders for various reasons decided to sell him. When I asked if any museum was interested in such unique shots, they told me that many museums would like to get this archive, but only for free, since the state does not have a budget for its acquisition. At first glance at the negatives, I realized that I was looking at a unique material that I have not yet seen anywhere. This is mostly an unknown piece of history for ordinary people, even for citizens of the former USSR.
More than 600 negatives were cut one frame at a time, and each was gently wrapped in a piece of paper. All negatives were numbered and signed. The more I scanned them, the more I plunged into the events of World War II. And only then I was able to fully evaluate this unique piece of history - our unknown story.
One of the main parts of this archive is the negatives of the end of the war (April - May 1945) from Germany. Valery Dolzonsky left us amazing photographs of the destroyed almost to the foundation of Berlin and his inhabitants. The photographs shows that Dolzonsky was sincerely interested in the fate of people on both sides of the Barricades of the Second World War.
Today we are trying to preserve the legacy of Valery Damnsky and the memory of him, having published a book that will contain more than 100 photographs from Germany with signatures and text of the author. Support our project on the planet .
The exhibition "May forty -fifth Berlin Tchk" will be held from April 15 to June 25 in the classic photograph gallery.