Photographers and Ateliers in Bakhmut at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Ihor Kornatskyi
Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore7.10.2025, 18:30
Conference Room of the Center for Urban History
We invite you to a presentation of the collection of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore and a conversation with Ihor Kornatskyi about the history of Bakhmut photo studios and their connection with the social development of the city, the museum's collection of photographs and their information potential as historical sources.
The first photographic ateliers in Bakhmut, the county center of the Yekaterinoslav province, appeared in the early 1870s. The collection of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore includes the products of local photo studios by Rosalia and David Mereines, Leon and Isaac Hrylihes, Hersh-Leiba Brodsky, Yefim Lvov, Mykhailo Itskovych, Emanuel Bilotserkovsky, and Lazar Khadak. All Bakhmut photo ateliers were owned by Jews, which is generally typical for the Yekaterinoslav province, which was part of the "settlement zone."
Among the photographs in the museum collection are portraits of townspeople and villagers, representatives of various professions and social classes, adults and children, and family group photos. Of particular interest are the view photos of different parts of the city, its historic buildings, some of which were destroyed during the Second World War, others have already suffered from the current Russian aggression. Photos from the 1920s clearly reflect the changes that took place in society during the revolutionary transformations.
During the event, we will trace the history of photography in Bakhmut from the 1860s to the 1917 revolution, and the changes that occurred in the activities of private photo studios during the Soviet era, up to their closure at the turn of the 1920s and 30s. By combining visual sources with evidence from archival documents and statistical materials, we will try to reveal the connection between photography and the socio-economic, political, and cultural life of the city and the region in pre-Soviet and early Soviet times.
The event is a part of the Center's public program [unarchiving], in which we try to change the established understanding of archives and archiving and present historical collections from an unusual perspective.
Ihor Kornatskyi
Bakhmut Museum of Local LoreHistorian, local historian, director of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore, which, among other exhibits, has a significant collection of photographs and postcards from the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods. He is the author of a number of articles on the history of ethnic communities, the church, military formations, the post office, customs in Bakhmut, about old postcards in the museum collection, and the activities of local photographic enterprises. Research interests: the history of settlement and formation of the ethnic composition of the region’s population, the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and political repressions of the 1920s-1950s in Donetsk region, local history bibliography and periodicals, visual sources in historical local history.
Ihor Kornatskyi
Bakhmut Museum of Local LoreHistorian, local historian, director of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore, which, among other exhibits, has a significant collection of photographs and postcards from the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods. He is the author of a number of articles on the history of ethnic communities, the church, military formations, the post office, customs in Bakhmut, about old postcards in the museum collection, and the activities of local photographic enterprises. Research interests: the history of settlement and formation of the ethnic composition of the region’s population, the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and political repressions of the 1920s-1950s in Donetsk region, local history bibliography and periodicals, visual sources in historical local history.
Credits
Cover Image: General view of Bakhmut. East side. 1904-1909. Book and paper shop of I.R. Hrilikhes in Bakhmut and Yenakiyeve. Collection of the Bakhmut Local History Museum.
Gallery: Maria Urban