Siege of Leningrad

Mikhail Prigozhin

All the negatives were taken by Mikhail Prigozhin in the period 1943-44 at the Leningrad Front, both during the blockade and during the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad and the liberation of the Leningrad Region. To almost all negatives Mikhail Prigozhin made signatures on various scraps of paper in blue pencil and put his signature everywhere. The negatives were well preserved and did not require washing, only a light scouring. One part of the negatives were shot on Soviet grainy black-and-white film, and the other on German AGFA film which most likely appeared as trophies.

According to information I was able to establish Mikhail Semenovich Prigozhin was born in Shklov, Belorussian SSR in 1902. In July 1941 he was called up to the front and served as a photographer of the army newspaper «Boevoy Natisk» of the 21st Army. He went all the way to Germany, and «for courageous and brave work on the battlefield,» Mikhail Prigozhin was awarded the Order of World War II degree, medals «For the defense of Leningrad» and «For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945». However, there is practically no more detailed information about him or his front-line pictures either on the Internet or in the numerous books devoted to Soviet front-line photojournalists.