Photographic print of Red Army soldiers in 1943 near Kursk, Soviet Union, by Mark Markov-Grinberg, a Soviet Jewish photographer and World War II correspondent. This image represents a scene from the Battle of Kursk, 1943, a major turning point of the war as it ended the German offensive in the east and gave the Soviet Army the strategic advantage for the rest of the war. Markov-Grinberg was a major Social Realist photographer during the Stalinist era of the 1930s-1940s. He worked for major newspapers and journals, including TASS. He was a war correspondent during the Soviet-Finnish War from 1939-1940 and, in 1941, was drafted to fight in World War II. While a soldier, he continued his work as a photographer and army correspondent. After the war, he returned to his job at TASS.
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Black and white ferrotyped gelatin silver print, portrait orientation, depicting 4 male soldiers holding rifles, lined up in a narrow, V shaped trench, crouched down to avoid detection as a tank roles over the trench above their heads. In the foreground, a man leans against the right wall; his rifle barrel pointed up; in the middle ground, the picture’s focal point, a man leans against the left wall, gun pointed towards the right; the tank treads are directly overhead. In the background are two men: the 1st leans right, his rifle obscuring his face; the 2nd leans left, gun to the right, face obscured by the 1st man’s torso. All wear quilted coats and ushankas with the flaps tied to the crown. The tank’s front 4 wheels with caterpillar tracks, can be seen crossing the trench at an upward angle. The photographer’s viewpoint is from inside the trench, facing the soldiers; there is no eye contact. The left trench wall is out of focus, and contrasts with the roughly textured walls. The artist’s signature, year, title, and a number are inscribed on the reverse. back, center, Russian script, pencil : 1943 [Symbol] back, top left corner, pencil : 14
Markov-Grinberg photograph of Soviet soldiers crouching in a trench as a tank rolls across the gap
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Mark Borisovich Markov-Grinberg was born on November 27, 1907, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. He learned photography at secondary school. In 1925, he took his first job as a photographer for the Sovetsky Yug (Soviet South) newspaper and worked as a freelance correspondent for Ogonyok magazine. In 1926, Markov-Grinberg moved to Moscow and worked for various trade union newspapers and the magazine, Krasnoarmeyskaya Smena (Transformation). In 1930, he accepted an offer to work for the Fotokhronika TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union). He traveled around the country photographing the official Soviet Union: major construction projects, collective farms, and happy workers engaged in building Soviet Society, as well as prominent Russian and foreign personalities. His photographs appeared in major Soviet publications, including USSR in Construction, a magazine that documented Stalin’s Five-Year Plans to industrialize the Soviet Union. In 1934, TASS commissioned Markov-Grinberg to create a photo essay detailing a day in the life of Ukrainian miner, Nikita Izotov. He created an iconic portrait of Izotov as a Socialist worker hero. The Izotov photo essay launched Markov-Grinberg's career as a Stalin-era photographer and he became one of the most important photographers of his generation. His work was part of the socialist realist movement in photography which pictured life as it should be in idealized images made to look like objective recordings of things as they were. During the Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940), Markov-Grinberg worked for TASS as a war correspondent and documented the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus. In September 1941, he was drafted into the Red Army, and continued to take photographs. He became the army correspondent for the military publication, Slovo Boitsa (Soldier’s World), in July 1943. He created well-known images of the Battle of Kursk and the crematorium at Stutthof concentration camp, when it was liberated on May 9, 1945, by the Soviet Army. Markov-Grinberg lost his job with TASS in 1948 as a result of the anti-Semitic climate of late Stalinism. After his demobilization in 1953, he worked as a photographer for the Red Army Illustrated Gazette and, later, for the photography publishing office of the Soviet Union Agricultural Exhibition, a theme park about the People’s Economy. From 1957–1973, Markov-Grinberg worked for the Club and Art Hobby magazine. He took part in photography exhibitions in the USSR and abroad. An honorary member of the Russian Union of Art Photographers, Markov-Grinberg died in 2006 at the age of 99.
The photographic print was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Dr. Stephen Nicholas.
overall: Height: 19.880 inches (50.495 cm) | Width: 23.500 inches (59.69 cm)