New Digital Collection: "Americans in the Land of Lenin: Documentary Photographs of Early Soviet Russia, 1919-1930"

[Ernest A Zitser]

Duke University Libraries is proud to announce the publication of a new 
digital collection called "Americans in the Land of Lenin: Documentary 
Photographs of Early Soviet Russia, 1919-1930" <
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/esr/>. This collection of 750 
photographs of daily life in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is 
drawn from the personal papers of Robert L. Eichelberger and Frank Whitson 
Fetter, two ordinary Americans who found themselves in an extraordinary 
place and time. Both men left unique photos of their encounter with 
ordinary individuals of the self-proclaimed first socialist country in the 
world. Their images of life in the Soviet provinces between the World Wars 
reveal an agrarian, multi-ethnic country, still reeling under the impact 
of the revolutionary forces unleashed at the beginning of the 
20th-century. This collection complements the resources in the University 
of Michigan’s "Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections" as well as 
UNC-CH "Russia Beyond Russia Digital Library."  A YouTube video (length: 
2:44) highlighting the collection is available at: <
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHBKlX-7-QQ>.  For additional information 
about the American Expeditionary Force photos of the Russian Civil War, 
see Ernest Zitser, "‘‘A Dirty Place for Americans to Be’’: Images of he 
Russian Civil War in Siberia from the Robert L. Eichelberger Collection at 
Duke University Libraries," Slavic & East European Information Resources, 
10 (2009): 29–44 <
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/esr/dirty_place_for_americans-to_be_final.pdf
>. 

For more information about the collection, contact:

Ernest Zitser, Ph.D., Librarian for Slavic and Eastern European Studies, 
Duke University.
230 Bostock/Perkins Library
Box 90195
Duke University
Durham NC 27708-0195
Phone: 919-660-5847
Fax: 919-668-3134
E-mail: ernest.zitser at duke.edu
Web: http://library.duke.edu/about/directory/staff.do?id=44fd68e42