The Soviet Century—a publication to accompany the exhibition of the same name that takes place in the context of PHotoEspaña 2018—brings together more than 500 images belonging to the Archivo Lafuente, which document the history of Russia between 1917 and 1972 through the lens of the great masters of Russian photography.
Photographers such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Giorgi Zelma and El Lissitzky and many more, captured meetings, demonstrations, parades, factories, farms, strikes, wars… and they also made countless portraits of political leaders, artists, peasants and workers. Grouped into eight thematic sections—Constructing the New Man, Heralds of Tempests, The Collective Dream, Soviets and Electricity, Fighting for the Harvest, Expanding Towards the East, War and the Course of History and A Moscow Diary—these images reconstruct historical events such as the 1917 Revolution, the dawn of the Avant-garde, World War II and more.
Accompanied by three essays by on Soviet history, art and photography, as well as short biographies of all the featured photographers and other complementary texts, this beautiful, comprehensive publication serves as a key testimony to the construction and evolution of the Soviet regime, as well as a thorough history of 20th-century Russian photography.
