Valery Faminsky: An Unknown Frontline Archive

Valery Faminsky: An Unknown Frontline Archive

The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to view photographs from Valery Faminsky’s previously unknown and recently discovered frontline archive. The exhibition is arranged as a labyrinth of metal display stands featuring Valery Faminsky’s photographs printed on banners. The stands are arranged in chronological order, following the photographer’s wartime journey.

Valery Faminsky’s wartime archive consists of two major sections: the liberation of Crimea (April–May 1944) and the end of the war in Germany, Berlin (April–May 1945). Faminsky depicts the harsh realities of wartime life: soldiers exhausted by the endless war, shortages of uniforms, medicine, and means of evacuating the wounded. There are many photographs of wounded Red Army soldiers walking to medical stations or being transported by horse-drawn or dog-drawn sleds. Unlike most Soviet photojournalists, Valery Faminsky took a great many photographs of the ruins of bombed-out Berlin and the harsh postwar daily life of its residents. Valery Faminsky’s photographs convey an incredibly humanistic perspective and the message of a photographer who was sincerely interested in the fates of people on both sides of the conflict.

2021, Innovative Cultural Center (Kaluga, Russia)