Without Retouching. Soviet Style

When our author, the famous fashion historian Alexander Vasilyev, brought his enormous archive of photographs to the publishing house, the editorial staff was astounded. How to deal with such a grand material?

And here is the selected, most “telling” photo material about the Soviet era, accompanied by texts from Alexander Vasilyev. A picture of the everyday life of the Soviet person unfolds before the reader, shown through the camera lens: where they lived, how they rested, how they dressed for dances, parades, and demonstrations, what images were created in theater, cinema, and on stage.

Why “without retouching”? Because retouching was mainly used to correct images of official figures. For example, when another party official fell from grace, his hand resting on the shoulder of a still unscathed comrade would be shaded out so that it blended seamlessly with the clothing. And where the face of the newly minted enemy of the people appeared, a bouquet of flowers would suddenly emerge.

Some photographs were passed to Alexander Vasilyev from his father, artist Alexander Pavlovich Vasilyev, but the lion's share of the collection was made up of what the author, as a Soviet schoolboy, found at stalls, and much later – at flea markets in various countries. Well, some people brought their family photographs to Alexander, knowing how tenderly he relates to historical memory and how carefully he preserves it.