“Sergei Mikhailovich PROKUDIN-GORSKII, The Photographer to the People”

Lecturer Dr. Margaret Dikovitskaya

This lecture offers cultural analysis and theoretical interpretation of some 2,000 images from the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection in the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress (Washington, DC). Between 1909 and 1912 and again in 1915, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, one of the first Russians to experiment

with COLOR photography, captured daily life, topography, agriculture, industry, and culture of eleven regions of the Russian Empire — Ukraine, White Russia, the Volga River basin, the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus, Turkestan and others. The fact that Prokudin-Gorskii traveled in a special railroad car equipped with a darkroom provided by the tzar Nicholas II bespeaks the perceived importance of his project.

These lectures were made possible in part by the grant from Russkiy Mir foundation and support by Russian Center NY.