The Rise of Photojournalism in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900-1931

This dissertation examines the origins and development of photojournalism in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union from 1900 to 1931. It analyzes the role of photo-reportage in the illustrated press and examines how publishers, editors, and photographers created a new visual language that shaped public opinion. Tracing the rise of press photography in the Tsarist era, this study argues that photo-reportage offered Russia’s burgeoning middle class an unprecedented venue for publicity; delineates the evolution of photojournalism from a means of public expression to an instrument of political scrutiny; and explores the visual world organized by editors on the magazine page, which reflected and reinforced public values and social norms. This dissertation then shows how, after the Revolution, the Bolsheviks transformed the production of photo-reportage, while still relying on pre-revolutionary models and personnel to create a new Soviet illustrated press. Though offering a wide variety of magazines, Soviet publishers presented a limited range of information and an ideologically uniform image of reality in line with the propaganda aims of the Communist party. This study concludes by demonstrating how Soviet press authorities elevated photo-reportage to an official visual aesthetic. As the country embarked on Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan, this photographic orthodoxy was used to marginalize competing approaches to photography and to invest a pre-revolutionary sense of journalistic authenticity into a staged picture of Soviet reality