Text by guest blogger Maria Vinogradova; artwork by Asja Dolgikh.
Exactly 93 years ago, on December 29th, 1930, composer Sergei Prokofie wrote in his diary:
We are having a holiday party: both children and grown-ups. Among the latter is the old lady Meindorff whom I drove in and back by car. The old lady is wonderful, fresh – found something to talk about with everyone. I ran the cinematograph with our summer movies, which had greater success than the ones we rented.
Exactly four descriptions of those “summer movies” survive in Prokofiev’s diary (or its published part, which is known to have been censored by his son Sviatoslav), all written in September 1930 when he bought a Pathé Baby 9.5mm camera. Prokofiev’s diaries present a vibrant parade of some of the most important cultural figures of the time, many of them Russian emigrés who fled the revolution, or visitors from the young Soviet Union whose borders still remained open. Those notes that describe the home movies create vignettes frozen in time, a perfect instance of “this-has-been” — the phrase that Roland Barthes famously used in his Camera Lucida to articulate that which gives photographs, in particular, casual snapshots, their powerful impression. This impression is all the more poignant as some of these movies’ characters, such as the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, perished in Stalin’s purges by the end of the decade.
Prokofiev’s reels are not known to survive, but the scenes of making them appear more material than any other instances recorded in his diary. As I continue searching for the films, I have joined forces with the wonderful Asja Dolgikh of Belgrade to imagine what Prokofiev’s moviemaking could look like. Her images illustrate this brief story.
This drawing is based on a photograph of a receipt for the purchase of a Pathé Baby system that survives in Prokofiev’s archival collection at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
May we all have a happy year ahead of us. May we not only search for films but also find them. And may the joy of getting together be stronger than wars and other antagonisms dividing us. May we never forget those who perished in these struggles. May refugees get home. May we live in peace, and may we never stop struggling to find harmony with the likes of ourselves and with our planet.