Surviving unknown negatives by Fedor Levshin

Surviving unknown negatives by Fedor Levshin

The photographic legacy of many Soviet front-line photographers was lost as a result of several factors. First and most important, of course, was the brutal Soviet military censorship. Many negatives that did not pass ideological selection were simply cut out and destroyed. And the photo correspondents who took pictures that «did not meet the requirements» were severely punished, in the best case by being recalled from the front and banned from taking pictures, up to being sent to the penal battalions and paying for their guilt with blood in the battles for the motherland. As a result of such severe measures and restrictions, photographers simultaneously self-censored. Some of the images that managed to pass censorship and get into the newspapers were either no longer relevant, as the war events were developing very quickly, or were not suitable as illustrations for carefully proofread and censored text. Therefore, some unused negatives were kept in the editorial offices as working material. With the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, many Soviet editorial offices were liquidated, and some of their archives and documents were either destroyed or sold for nothing. Due to this, some unknown materials of Soviet photographers managed to survive. That is why I consider the finding of even a relatively small number (more than 200 negatives) of the Soviet photo correspondent Fedor Levshin as a great luck. Some of the negatives from this archive were damaged or overexposed, either as a result of shooting or developing, or due to improper storage conditions for a long time.

Fedor Levshin was born on October 3, 1912 in the village of Gati, Venyevsky District, Tula region. In 1919 he moved to Moscow with his parents. He worked as a photographer for the newspaper «Izvestia» after finishing school. And in 1938 he became a photo correspondent for the newspaper «Krasnaya Zvezda». With the outbreak of war, in 1941, Levshin was drafted into the Red Army by the Moscow Military Recruitment Center with the rank of captain, as a photo correspondent for the newspaper «Krasnaya Zvezda». From the first days of the war, he was at the front as a special photo correspondent of the newspaper and covered the battles of the Red Army. Levshin took part in the battles of the Finnish Campaign (Winter War), the Southern, Western, Voronezh, 3rd Belorussian, 1st Baltic, Volkhov, 2nd Ukrainian and 1st Far Eastern Fronts. He was wounded in one of the battles during the liberation of Rostov-on-Don. Until the autumn of 1945, Fedor Levshin was constantly in the troops and formations of the active army, taking part in combat operations. For his work and service Levshin was awarded such awards as: Medal «For the defense of Stalingrad» (22.12.1942), Medal «For the Defense of the Caucasus» (01.05.1944), Medal «For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945». (09.05.1945), Medal «For the Victory over Japan» (30.09.1945), Medal «For Capture of Budapest» (09.06.1945), Medal «For Capture of Vienna» (09.06.1945), Medal «For Liberation of Belgrade» (09.08.1945), Order of the Red Star (04.1945), Medal «For Military Merit» (21.08.1953), Order of the Red Star (30.12.1956). After the successful Manchurian operation, the Battle of Manchuria or «August Storm» in 1945, Levshin ended the war and returned to Moscow. In February 1961, Fedor Levshin was discharged into the reserve with the rank of lieutenant colonel. There were 4 brothers in the Levshin family: Fedor, Anatoly, Mikhail and Lev, all of them returned from the war alive.