Photo Trip around the Russian Empire
The invention of photography in the mid-19th century offered a new way of creating truthful psychological images and genre scenes. A photograph can show an accurate truth and still be a work of art. The works by Russian photographers make up an extensive photo gallery documenting the vast Russian Empire. Photographs depict forests, rivers, mountains and other landscapes, the local people and architecture, as well as scenes from the life in villages and cities.
Photographs began to come into the Imperial Public Library (now the National Library of Russia) in the mid-1850s. In 1856, the prominent Petersburg photographers S. Levitsky and A. Shpakovsky donated portraits of Russian cultural figures to the Library. In 1885, the famous art critic V. Stasov prepared the catalogue of the Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library. At that time, the Library already comprised a great number of photographs. V.Stasov gave a detailed description of the rarest and most valuable items.
![V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885](/ve/dep/artupload/ve/article/RA4193/MA35171/NA38868.jpg "V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885")
![V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885](/ve/dep/artupload/ve/article/RA4193/MA35171/NA38869.jpg "V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885")
![V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885](/ve/dep/artupload/ve/article/RA4193/MA35171/NA38870.jpg "V.V. Stasov <I>Photographic and Phototypic Collections of the Imperial Public Library</I> / [work by] Vl. V. Stasov. - St. Petersburg: V.S.Balashev Printing House, 1885")
Photography was used successfully by scientific researchers and by travellers, in archaelogical excavations and in architectural restoration work.
In 1858, the Imperial Geographical Society awarded a small gold medal to Mikhail Tulinov (1823-1889) for a survey of the Voronezh region and the accompanying photo album of national types and costumes. In 1867, Peter Pyatnitsky (? -1882) produced the Photo Collection of Ancient Churches and Types of Slavs in European Turkey, responding to the public interest in the Balkan Slavs who then fought against Turkish rule. The album of 80 perfect photographs presents landscapes and religious buildings as well as individual and group portraits of Slavs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 1865, Andrey Denier (1820-1892), a graduate of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, published monthly the Album of Photographic Portraits of Their Majesties and The Russia's Famous. In addition to portraits, each issue contains a photograph depicting various national types of Russia. Sometimes these are studio shots by Denier himself — for example, the March issue features a group of Samoyeds. Sometimes Denier used works by other masters: the picture of Dzhigits on the Eastern Coast of the Black Sea