Photographing Lenin: Pyotr Otsup

Lenin working in his Kremlin office, October 16, 1918, Moscow -- An iconic Otsup photograph.

Written by Pyotr Otsup, a famed Soviet photographer, in 1969, this is a look at his attempts to photograph Lenin over the years, including taking the iconic photo of Lenin reading Pravda at his desk. See the end of the piece for a brief biography of Otsup.

Text:

I SAW Vladimir Ilyich for the first time on October 28 (November 10) 1917. He was walking fast down the corridor of the Smolny Palace with a coat over his shoulders and carrying a big folder full of papers. I came up and asked to take his picture.

"I think now is not the time, comrade," he answered. “It would be better to do it when I look like myself again. Then you will be welcome."

This conversation took place soon after Lenin returned from Finland, where he had been hiding from the Provisional Government police. He had shaved his beard off so he would not be recognized.

Life was all astir in Petrograd in those agitated days. Unprecedented historical events were taking place, New life was being created in the streets and squares of Petrograd and in the rooms and corridors of the Smolny.

Every minute counted, bringing changes no one had ever conceived of. I knew that I could not go on doing merely routine work. The days would come and go and some of the wonderful details and characteristics of the period would be forgotten. My camera gave me the opportunity of fixing on film and paper what was going on around me. I took pictures of everything I saw: demonstrations in the streets, meetings in the squares, Red Guard units forming, delegations arriving from the front.

Meeting with wonderful people who headed the mass movement and led the proletariat, 1 thought up the idea of compiling an album so as to perpetuate their faces for history and future generations.

It was not easy. The people I wished to immortalize were extremely modest, and when I asked to photograph them they often answered:

"Why take a picture of me? Better photograph the masses, the people who are making the Revolution.”

Besides, they were all very busy. And here I was poking through the doors with my big wooden camera. I would fix the tripod where an important conference was going on, get under the black cloth and often fill the room with the noise and smoke of a magnesium flash at the most inopportune moment.

They would usher me out politely by one door, and I, obsessed by the idea of photographing everything important, would come in through another one.

I had not forgotten the promise Vladimir Ilyich had made me, and once I asked his secretary to remind him.

Minutes later I was invited into Lenin's private office.

"How much time will the business take?” asked Vladimir Ilyich.

"No more than five or 10 minutes,” I said.

"Well, go ahead."

"While I was setting up the camera, Vladimir Ilyich picked up Pravda and became absorbed in reading. After fixing the camera to the tripod, I focused it and without losing a moment made three pictures in succession. Having finished the article he had been reading, Vladimir Ilyich put the paper aside, apologized for keeping me waiting and asked me to begin. I took several more pictures and left.

The next day, when I brought the photographs, Vladimir Ilyich looked at them in surprise.

"And where did you take these with the paper?" he asked.

I explained the origin of the pictures and Vladimir Ilyich smiled.

"You photographers are dangerous people!” he said and signing two of the pictures I had brought, presented them to me. I keep these pictures as a great treasure.

During the Civil War I went to the front several times and brought back photographs for the newspapers and the museums. Vladimir Ilyich always looked at those i brought him with great interest.

"The historical importance of photography is very great," he said. “ An artist cannot commemorate an event as quickly as a photographer. Do not make so many photographs of individuals, pay more attention to the masses, try to commemorate events."

I tried to follow Lenin's advice. But it was hard to photograph in those days. Cameras were imperfect and cumbersome. | traveled with large wooden ones. The slides were also made of wood. Every negative weighed almost a pound and all my equipment more than 40 pounds. Getting the camera set up took so much time that often the most interesting moment was lost. There were no such fine portable cameras as the FED, the Leica and the Contax then.

The poor quality of the plates, paper and chemicals, which were produced in very primitive fashion, made developing and printing a lengthy and painful procedure. One could not tell beforehand whether the picture would be good or whether the negative would be covered with blobs and spots.

Every time I returned to Moscow from my trips to the front and the cities of the republic, I looked for a chance to take more pictures of Lenin. Lidiya Fotieva, his secretary, and Maria llyinichna, his sister, were often angry at my persistence, but I bore all their reproaches silently, convinced that I was doing something necessary and important for everyone.

The second time, in 1920, I made several portraits of Vladimir Ilyich in his study in the Kremlin. I was assigned the task of compiling several albums on the history of the Revolution, the Red Army and the creation of the Soviet republics. Vladimir Ilyich personally supervised the work. He looked through all the pictures, gave advice and corrected mistakes.

In 1922 I photographed Vladimir Ilyich a third time. In spite of his illness he was always very mindful of me.

This time I was not able to show him the photographs. I called up the secretariat for an appointment and was told that Comrade Lenin was very ill.

When I saw him for the last time, it was on his deathbed. The day he died I was urgently called to Gorki where I made my last photograph of Vladimir Ilyich.

Bio:

Pyotr Otsup was a prominent Soviet photojournalist renowned for documenting key historical events in Russia, producing nearly 40,000 photographs over his career.

He was born on July 21, 1883, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He developed an interest in photography while studying at a photo saloon during the 1890s. His career as a photographer began with the Russo-Japanese War, where he worked as a photojournalist on the frontlines. By 1900, he was contributing to the magazine Ogoniok, and over the years, he photographed for publications like Rodina, Iskra, and Solnze Rossii.

He also took portraits of prominent figures, both cultural and political. Some of his subjects included Leo Tolstoy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Feodor Chaliapin, as well as revolutionary and Soviet leaders like Vladimir Lenin—of whom he took 35 portraits between 1918 and 1922—Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Semyon Budyonny, and Kliment Voroshilov. His portraits of Lenin served as prototypes for the Order of Lenin and Soviet ruble banknotes.

From 1918 to 1935, Otsup was the Kremlin’s photographer. He was the only photojournalist to capture the Second Congress of Soviets, and during 1918–1921, he documented the battlefronts of the Russian Civil War. He also held positions with the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1919–1925) and managed the Russian Central Council of Labor Unions photography studio (1925–1935).

Otsup produced nearly 40,000 photographs, preserving a visual record of Russia’s transformative years. His work is held in significant museum collections, and his contributions were recognized with awards such as the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1947) and the Order of Lenin (1962). He died on January 23, 1963, in Moscow.