Author: Zelma, Georgii
Title: Pioner Lin (a Young Kirghiz Pioneer Lad)
Description: S. l. (Kyrgyzstan [?]): By the photographer, 1920. Softcover. Silver gelatin print, n. d. (ca 1920s [?]); 16 1/2 x 10 3/4; two small chips to upper left corner and top edge; several minor rubbed spots and pin-pricks to edges; titled in Cyrillic in blue pencil on verso; also on verso, a label of the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries with title in English and a small American Russian Institute stamp; overall in very good- condition. Georgii Anatolevich Zelma (1906 - 1984), a pioneer of modern documentary photography, was born in Tashkent and moved to Moscow with his family in 1921. At just 15, he began taking pictures with an old 9 x 12 Kodak camera. He eventually started working for the Proletkino film studios and for the journal "Teatr." Between 1924 and 1927, Zelma returned to his homeland as a correspondent to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Central Asia, where he documented the local, predominantly Muslim population's transformation by the Soviets. The original for the current print was most probably taken during that period. Throughout the 1930s, his images were often published in the journal "USSR in Construction" and he frequently collaborated with Max Alpert and Aleksandr Rodchenko. Some of his most memorable photographs were taken in the winter of 1942 - 1943, during the Battle of Stalingrad, while he was stationed at the front-line as a correspondent for "Izvestiia." In fact, his documenting that pivotal point of the Second World War inspired the theme for the movie "Enemy at the Gate," in 2001. Ill.: 0. 2.

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