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This snap of the village of Pralevka in Lukoyanovskoye County in Nizhny Novgorod Guberniya (in present-day Novoslobodsky Rural Council of Bolshoye Boldino Raion in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) (taken in 1891-92) in the Volga region is by the famed photographer Maksim Dmitriev (1858-1948). Unlike the pioneering colour pictures of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky (which are a unique treasure), the photos of Dmitriev didn’t show a picture-postcard Russia. He took photos showing the actual conditions found in the countryside. If you wish a fully-rounded view of Tsarist Russia, you must take into account both Prokudin-Gorsky and Dmitriev. Otherwise, you end as a self-serving propagandist of either the left or the right (the latter bunch has taken over sections of the ROCOR and it issues bootless and ungrounded attacks on the Soviet period, without mentioning ANY of the blemishes of the tsarist era, or mentioning that many of their families were Nazi collaborators in the VOV). There were serious social problems, real weaknesses that the World War exacerbated. The tsarist state wasn’t “doomed to die”, but the actions of many of its supporters did hasten that end. That’s something to think about, isn’t it?
BMD
