Sergej Strunnikow

(Russia 1907–1944)

Title

Soja

Other titles:

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, 'Tania', a partisan tortured by Fascists

Year

1941, printed later

Media

Photograph

Medium

gelatin silver photograph

Dimensions

9.6 x 13.8cm image/sheet :
0 - Whole; 20 x 16"; mount

Signature & date

Not signed. Not dated.

Credit

Purchased 1997

Accession number

209.1997

Location

Not on display

Further information

Strunnikow graduated from the Moscow Film School and became a photojournalist for 'Pravda' in 1932. At that time, he documented the industrialisation and collectivisation process in Middle Asia and the Caucasus. During the war he was a frontline photographer for 'Pravda', and he was noted for his coverage of the battles around Odessa, Moscow and Leningrad. This close-up image of 'Soja', also known as ‘Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, “Tania”, a Russian partisan tortured by Fascists’, is emotionally disturbing. Strunnikov shows us a woman, presumably not long dead, who lies in the snow, her chest bearing the marks of torture and the rope with which she was hung frozen taut around her broken neck. Who was Soja? An innocent victim? A heroic martyr? While Strunnikov denies the viewer the information to contextualise and explain, one can observe in this small, tightly cropped press print, that the body is resurrected, and invested with an order of knowledge that makes ‘Soja’ a compelling icon of remembrance and regret through signifying the real effects of war.

Needless to say, the force of politics in the Soviet Union added weight to 'realism' as the preferred form of expression, and to the comprehensive documentation of battles and deaths on Soviet soil. And while the camera as ‘witness’ has been present in wars, as early as the American Civil War, this photograph is a poignant example of how photography has been critical in the construction of how conflict is understood, politically and ideologically. This is a particularly important image as war photography is considered in some quarters to be one of the few true genres of the medium.

Bibliography (5)

Windows on the war: Soviet TASS posters at home and abroad 1941-1945 (2011), Peter Kort Zegers (Editor), The Art Institute of Chicago (United States of America).

Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection (2007), Judy Annear (Australia) (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874).

World Without End - Photography and the 20th Century (2000), Judy Annear (Australia) (Author), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Glaube, Hoffnung - Anpassung: Sowjetische Bilder 1928-1945 (1995), Margarita Tupitsyn (Author), Museum Folkwang, Essen (Germany), Essen, Germany.

Art in America (Dec 1985), Max Kozloff (Author), Brand Art Pulications Incorporated, New York, New York, United States of America.

Exhibition history (4)

World Without End - Photography and the 20th Century, (02 Dec 2000–25 Feb 2001), at Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874), Art Gallery Rd Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000.

Glaube, Hoffnung - Anpassung: Sowjetische Bilder 1928-1945, (12 Nov 1995–07 Jan 1996), at Museum Folkwang, Essen (Germany), Essen, Germany.

Glaube, Hoffnung - Anpassung: Sowjetische Bilder 1928-1945, (15 Feb 1996–07 Apr 1996), at Wurttembergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart (Germany), Stuttgart, Germany.

Glaube, Hoffnung - Anpassung: Sowjetische Bilder 1928-1945, (18 Apr 1996–16 Jul 1996), at IVAM Centro Julio Gonzales, Valencia (Spain), Valencia Spain.