And Once There Was War…Red Square Parade
Dmitri Baltermants
Description
Subject Matter:
In this photograph, Baltermants poignantly challenges the triumphalist amnesia implicit in a military parade on Red Square in Moscow by placing at front and center a war veteran who has had both of his legs amputated. The man scowls as he balances himself on a dolly and looks back at the viewer/camera. He is surrounded on the one side by children and on the other by copiously decorated Soviet generals—he himself wears a number of medals on his jacket lapels. The officers next to him pay him no heed, though here he is a prominent and visible reminder of the high cost of warfare. That this image comes in a suite of pictures titled “The Great Patriotic War” adds a somewhat sardonic twist to the photograph and to the larger portfolio of which it is a part. This image was made twenty years after the conclusion of World War II.
Physical Description:
A man with amputated legs looks out toward the left amid a crowd that has gathered on the curb of a city street.
Usage Rights:
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