Olga Lander
{{Short description|Soviet photographer and journalist (1909–1996)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Family name hatnote|Alexandrovna|Lander|lang=Eastern Slavic}}{{Infobox person
| image = Photo of Olga Lander.jpg
| alt = Lander in Red Army uniform, facing the viewer with a camera to her eye, ready to take a photograph.
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1909|4|10}}
| birth_place = Samara, Russian Empire
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1996|9|19|1909|4|10}}
| death_place = Moscow, Russia
| alma_mater = Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry
| occupation = {{hlist| photographer | journalist }}
| awards = {{hlist| Knight of the Order of the Red Star | Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class }}
}}
Olga Alexandrovna Lander ({{Langx|ru|link=no|Ольга Александровна Ландер}}; 10 April 1909 – 19 September 1996) was a Soviet documentary photographer and journalist{{cite journal |last1=Hecker |first1=Hans |title=Olga Lander, Sowjetische Kriegsfotografin im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Hrsg. vom Museum Berlin-Karlshorst e.V., Halle (Saale): Mitteldeutscher Verlag 2018, 152 S., EUR 18,00 {{text|ISBN}} 978‑3‑96311‑117‑4 |journal=Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift |date=1 May 2020 |volume=79 |issue=1 |pages=277–279 |doi=10.1515/mgzs-2020-0048 |url=https://doi.org/10.1515/mgzs-2020-0048 |language=de |issn=2196-6850|url-access=subscription }} who studied photography with Moses Nappelbaum and David Sternberg. During World War II, Lander was a photojournalist and correspondent from the front of the Great Patriotic War. Lander accompanied the 3rd Ukrainian Front to areas including Kursk, Odessa and Vienna.{{cite book |first=Valery |last=Stigneev |chapter=Out of Russia: World War II Photographs by Olga Lander |pages=53–82 |editor-last1=McCusker |editor-first1=Carol |title=Breaking the Frame: Pioneering Women in Photojournalism |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=Museum of Photographic Arts |isbn=978-1878062062 |edition=1st Paperback}} She photographed a wide range of activities, including distinguished soldiers, official events, the action of advanced units in the battlefield, and everyday activities that included soldiers, mechanics, medical personnel, and stage performers.
During the war Lander rose to the rank of lieutenant. She was awarded medals for her photojournalistic work, including the Knight of the Order of the Red Star, and the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class. Following the war, she worked at the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNH) and as a photographer for the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya. She retired in 1974 and published a memoir of her life, Frontovymi dorogami in 1986.
Early life and education
Lander was the daughter of Jewish photographer Aleksandr Issajewitch Lander and his wife Yevgenija Issakovna, and is considered a second-generation Soviet Jewish photojournalist.{{cite book |last1=Murav |first1=Harriet |last2=Estraikh |first2=Gennady |title=Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering |date=28 August 2019 |publisher=Academic Studies PRess |isbn=978-1-61811-926-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v7OrDwAAQBAJ&dq=photographer+olga+lander&pg=PT186 |language=en}} After graduating from high school in Samara, she moved to Moscow to attend the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts{{cite web |title=Olga Lander |url=https://www.yadvashem.org/research/research-projects/soldiers/olga-lander.html |website=Yad Vashem |access-date=17 April 2024}}
in 1927. She also began to work with photographer {{ill|Moses Nappelbaum|qid=Q1781790}} and became a student and assistant of {{ill|David Sternberg|qid=Q97571298}}.{{cite web |last1=Werneke |first1=Jessica |title=Is it a "Truly 'Male'" Profession? Women Photojournalists in the Soviet Union |url=https://sovetskoefotoblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/is-it-a-truly-male-profession-women-photojournalists-in-the-soviet-union/ |website=Sovetskoe Foto Blog |language=en |date=2 September 2018}}
From 1930 Lander worked for the film studio Tadshikfilm,{{Cite web |last=Lenz |first=Susanne |date=15 February 2019 |title=Fotos von Kriegsfotografin Olga Lander: Versehrte Körper unter Blumenschmuck |url=https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/fotos-von-kriegsfotografin-olga-lander-versehrte-koerper-unter-blumenschmuck-li.1359122 |access-date=18 April 2024 |website=Berliner Zeitung |language=de}} traveling in Central Asia.
She initially worked as a photographic laboratory assistant for the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, but soon became a photo correspondent, traveling broadly through the Soviet Union.
Career
File:RIAN archive 90027 Gun Crew Moves to New Positions.jpg
Following the invasion of the USSR by the Nazis in June 1941, Lander was evacuated to Tashkent. She repeatedly appealed to be moved to a more active area, and by 1942, she had returned to Moscow. She broke with protocol and volunteered herself to be sent to the front with the military newspaper Sovetsky Voin (Soviet Soldier). Lander was given a military uniform and insignia, and at times was accompanied by a military escort provided by the army unit she was covering. She was one of only a few photographers who served continuously without returning to the editorial offices.
Lander is one of five women photographers known to have served at the front, out of 200 war photographers. The others were Olga Ignatovich,{{cite web |title=Boris and Olga Ignatovich. Two faces of war |url=https://gallerix.org/pr/boris-i-olga-ignatovich/ |website=Gallerix.ru |language=en}} Galina Sankova, Yelizaveta Mikulina and Natasha Bode.{{cite web |title=Sankova, Galina (b. 1904) {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sankova-galina-b-1904 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}{{cite book |last1=Rojavin |first1=Marina |last2=Harte |first2=Tim |title=Women in Soviet Film: The Thaw and Post-Thaw Periods |date=22 September 2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-40983-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yuE2DwAAQBAJ&dq=Olga+Lander,+Yelizaveta+Mikulina+and+Galina+Sankova&pg=PT120 |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Zubacheva |first=Ksenia |date=22 June 2020 |title=A female look at war: 10 photos taken by Soviet women during WWII |url=https://www.rbth.com/history/332348-war-female-photographers |access-date=18 April 2024 |website=Russia Beyond |language=en-US}} For much of the war, Lander's photographs were published with the credit of "O. Lander", which gave no indication of gender. By March 1944, she was credited as "Olga Lander".
Lander accompanied the 3rd Ukrainian Front, documenting major engagements including the Battle of Kursk, the Odessa Offensive, the Vienna offensive, and fighting in Kiev, Romania, Hungary. Lander was in Vienna for Victory in Europe Day. She remained with the editorial team in Soviet-occupied Romania until 1948.{{cite book |last1=Klein |first1=Erich |title=Die Russen in Wien, die Befreiung Österreichs : Wien 19945 , Augenzeugenberichte und über 400 unpublizierte Fotos aus Russland hrsg. von Erich Klein. [Fotos: Jewgenij Chaldej , Olga Lander] |date=1995 |publisher=Falter Verlag |location=Wien |isbn=9783854391418}}{{cite web |title=Exhibition Detail : Yevgeny Khaldei. Photographer of liberation |url=https://www.jmw.at/exhibition/yevgeny_khaldei_photographer_of_liberation |website=Jüdisches Museum Wien |access-date=17 April 2024 |language=en}} Over 1500 of her photographs were published in newspapers in the 1940s, showing both daily life and front line battles across Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary.{{cite news |title=Front-line camera woman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wLJWAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22olga+lander%22&pg=RA8-PA3 |access-date=17 April 2024 |work=Soviet Life |issue=September |publisher=Embassy of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the USA |date=1985 |language=en}} She also documented the soldiers' homecoming and rebuilding at the end of the war.{{cite journal |last1=Dale |first1=Robert |title=Visualizing the Red Army's Demobilization: Photography, Reconstructing Community and Creating Post-War Memory |journal=Journal of War & Culture Studies |date=3 April 2022 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=157–182 |doi=10.1080/17526272.2022.2065118 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2022.2065118 |access-date=17 April 2024 |language=en |issn=1752-6272}}
File:RIAN archive 67318 Soviet sappers.jpg
During the war, Lander used an FED camera, a Soviet copy of Germany's Leica camera. Lander's camera had a fixed 50 mm focal length, which meant that Lander could not zoom in on her subjects. To take photographs she had to be close to the action, despite the dangers this posed in war-time. The small-format camera produced lower quality negatives than a large-format camera, but allowed her to move quickly and achieve an immediacy in her photographs. Developing the photographs she took was an ongoing challenge, constantly requiring her to improvise. In her memoirs, she wrote: "I had no darkroom. Wherever I went, I had to build one. In the villages I used closets…in the cities I looked for dark basement corners."{{cite web |last1=Werneke |first1=Jessica Marie |date=2015 |title=The boundaries of art : Soviet photography from 1956 to 1970 |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b074848f-e36e-4def-bcee-7c2adfd88950/content |website=The University of Texas at Austin}}
After her discharge from the army, Lander returned to Moscow, where she worked in the photographic department of Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (VDNH). Lander eventually began to work as a photographer for the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya, which was first published in 1956. She remained there until her retirement in 1974.
Lander was one of nine Moscow-based women photojournalists profiled in an article in Sovetskoe Foto in 1974.{{cite journal |last1=Garth |first1=Maria |title=Soviet Avant-Gardes and Socialist Realism Women Photographers Bridging the Divide, 1930s–1960s |journal=Journal of Avant-garde Studies |date=2022 |issue=1 |pages=188–220AVANT |doi=10.1163/25896377-00102002|doi-access=free }}{{cite news |last1=Sergeev |first1=A. |last2=Parlashkevich |first2=N. |title=Za kruglym stolom'—zhenshchiny-reportery: o professii i o sebe" ("Behind the 'Round Table': Women Reporters—About the Profession and About the Self |work=Sovetskoe foto |issue= 3 |date=1974 |pages=10–16}} Her work was included in An Anthology of Soviet Photography, 1941–1945 (1987). Lander published a memoir of her life, Frontovymi dorogami in 1986.{{cite book |last1=Lander |first1=O. |title=Frontovymi dorogami |date=1986 |location=Moskva}} She died in 1996.
Awards and honors
During the war, Lander rose to the rank of lieutenant. She was awarded the following medals for her photographic work.
- Order of the Red Star
- Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class
Collections and exhibitions
Over 3000 of Lander's war negatives are kept in archives, including the State Historical Museum and the Central Museum of the Russian Armed Forces in Moscow, the Russian State Film and Photo Archive in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast.
Exhibitions focusing on or including her work include:
- 2006, Breaking the Frame: Pioneering Women in Photojournalism, Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park, San Diego{{cite news |title=Exhibit focuses on women photojournalists |url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/pomerado-news/sdpn-exhibit-focuses-on-women-photojournalists-2006aug02-story.html |work=Pomerado News |date=2 August 2006}}
- 2011, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes, CU Art Museum, University of Colorado Boulder{{cite web |title=Through Soviet Jewish Eyes Collection |url=https://www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies/resources-scholarships/through-soviet-jewish-eyes-collection |website=Program in Jewish Studies |language=en |date=14 August 2014}}
- 2013, Soviet photography, State Russian Museum and Exhibition Centre for Photography, Saint-Petersburg{{cite web |title=Exhibition SOVIET PHOTOGRAPHY - artist, news & exhibitions - photography-now.com |url=https://photography-now.com/exhibition/93013 |website=photography-now.com}}
- 2017, Olga Lander. The Supplemented Reality of the War, Museum of Military Uniforms, Moscow{{Cite web |title=Information Technologies and Culture: ARTEFACT application at the exhibition "Olga Lander. Augmented reality of war" |url=https://www.prlib.ru/en/events/677297 |access-date=18 April 2024 |website=Presidential Library |language=en}}
- 2017–2018, Wartime and Adventure, Women Photojournalists in Europe 1914 – 1945 / Kriegsalltag und Abenteuerlust, Kriegsfotografinnen in Europa 1914–1945, Das Verborgene Museum{{cite web |title=Exhibition Wartime and Adventure / Kriegsalltag und Abenteuerlust - artist, news & exhibitions - photography-now.com |url=https://photography-now.com/exhibition/125656 |website=photography-now.com}}
- 2018, Olga Lander – Sowjetische Kriegsfotografin im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Olga Lander – Soviet war photographer in the Second World War), Deutsch-russisches Museum, Karlshorst{{Cite book |last=Lander |first=Olʹga |title=Olga Lander: sowjetische Kriegsfotografin im Zweiten Weltkrieg = Ольга Ландер: Советский фотокорреспондент во Второй мировой войне |date=2018 |publisher=Mitteldeutscher Verlag |others=Museum Berlin-Karlshorst |isbn=978-3-96311-117-4 |editor-last=Blank |editor-first=Margot |location=Halle (Saale)}}
- 2021, Yevgeny Khaldei. The Photographer of the Liberation (Jewgenij Chaldej Der Fotograf der Befreiung), Jewish Museum Vienna (also included photographs by Olga Lander){{cite news |title=Exhibition of WWII photos by TASS's Yevgeny Khaldei opens in Vienna |url=https://tass.com/society/1288775 |access-date=17 April 2024 |work=TASS |date=12 May 2021}}
- 2021, Communism Through the Lens: Everyday Life Captured by Women Photographers in the Dodge Collection, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University{{cite web |title=Women Photographers in Dodge Collection at the Zimmerli |url=https://www.izbaarts.com/women-photographers-in-dodge-collection-at-the-zimmerli/?utm_source=mutualart&utm_medium=referral |website=Izba Arts |language=en |date=15 April 2021}}
References
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External links
- [https://www.militaryimages.net/media/russian-military-photographer-olga-lander.99490/ Photograph of Olga Lander]
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Category:Soviet women photographers
Category:Social documentary photographers