The forgotten archive of Czech amateur photographer Peska. Prague 1945

The forgotten archive of Czech amateur photographer Peska. Prague 1945

I found this archive on a Russian internet flea market in April 2021. All the negatives were bought and brought from Slovakia by the seller. The seller was a young man, an employee of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was fond of photography. He had bought the archive at a flea market in Bratislava during his business trip in 2014. The archive was sold by the photographer's son, surnamed Peška. Seven black-and-white negatives of German Agfa Isopan film were rolled up and stored in an iron box under a roll of Agfa black-and-white film. Inside were a Czech newspaper clipping and an envelope. The round metal box was rusty, but the films inside were well preserved and only needed a little cleaning and smoothing.

Shortly after the end of the war and the last battles in Czechoslovakia on 12 May 1945, a Czech amateur photographer by the name of Peška took many amazing portraits of Red Army and Czechoslovak army soldiers. Peška photographed the Soviet military walking through the centre of Prague with some locals. He took their portraits near the monument to Soviet tankers, also known as "Tank No. 23" and "Smichovský Tank", on Štefánik Square (now Kinský Square). In the background, Soviet soldiers can be seen looking at the newly erected monument. This monument was unveiled in Prague on 29 July 1945 in honour of the Soviet soldiers who came to the aid of Prague on 9 May 1945. The photographer also captured Soviet soldiers enjoying Czech beer and nature on Petřín Hill, walking on Charles Bridge and taking pictures near the sculptures, visiting the New Royal Palace, the square near St. Vitus Cathedral and other Prague sights.

But most of the images that the photographer Peszka took were candid, non-parade portraits of Red Army and Czechoslovak Army soldiers. The photographer took them at a railway depot (the exact location is unknown) where American items supplied to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease were counted and stored, in a park near the depots, and in the parking lot of German trophy equipment. Through Peshka's photographs we can see a real image of ordinary military men, out of uniform or in torn uniforms, with homemade shoulder boards, belts and stars on their pilotkas, fooling around with each other and local girls, posing with weapons, bicycles, trophy harmony, flowers, horses, and on trophy cars and motorcycles. Most of these portraits were taken as 'souvenir' photos, clearly not intended for publication in Soviet newspapers, given the heroes' uniforms and poses. In fact, however, it is these portraits that show the soldier best, first and foremost as a human being, not as a heroic wax figure on the front page of the Soviet newspaper Pravda.

Peshka's portraits are taken in an atmosphere of absolute trust and friendship. Perhaps the photographer himself was a military man, we do not know for sure. But these non-parade portraits show the human face of a soldier tired of the long years of a terrible war.