Vladislav Mikosha was just seven years old when the October Revolution shook Russia, leading to the end of tsarist rule and the birth of the Soviet Union. By the time the USSR came crashing down along with the Berlin Wall in 1990, the renowned photographer and cameraman was 80.
“So he was a witness to the entire history of Soviet Russia – the post-revolutionary times, the second world war, the cold war and beyond,” says Ben Burdett, whose Atlas Gallery will be showing Mikosha’s work in November as part of an exhibition called Masterpieces of Soviet Photography.
Alone among his contemporaries in working as both a still photographer and a film cameraman, Mikosha was the author of iconic images of events such as the brutal demolition of Christ the Saviour Cathedral in 1931, the defence of Sevastopol and the liberation of Warsaw. This 1937 photograph of an obedient keep-fit class is typical of Mikosha’s early work in the days of Stalin. “At that time, a huge proportion of the Russian population were illiterate, so visual communication was hugely important. Photography was taking big leaps forward and Soviet photographers were expected to take pictures that symbolised collective progress, the modern proletariat and the idea of community,” Burdett says. “A big part of that was athleticism, dance, games and sport. The imagery was sunny and happy, with lots of young Russians jumping around optimistically.”
Mikosha, who was Jewish, survived Stalin’s antisemitic purges by carefully toeing the party line. After reporting on the second world war, he went on to become a documentary photographer for publications such as Pravda and Ogoniok – the Soviet equivalent of Life magazine – covering the victory parade on Red Square and historic meetings between Stalin and Mao, Khrushchev and Kennedy.
He died in 2004, aged 95, leaving behind a vast number of images documenting a century of changes he would doubtless have found unimaginable as that seven year-old boy.
Masterpieces of Soviet Photography is at Atlas Gallery, London W1, 1-24 November
