As Central Asia was transformed under Soviet rule, one man made a remarkable record of life in the fledgling Uzbek S.S.R. before being driven from his career and toward tragedy.
The Forgotten Photographer Of Soviet Uzbekistan
- By Amos Chapple
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A gymnast poses near Komsomol Lake in Old Tashkent. By the end of the war, the anti-Semitism that had driven Penson from his homeland was rearing its head across the U.S.S.R.
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A portrait of Stalin oversees work on a collective farm. In 1948, as Stalin's anti-Jewish purges intensified, Penson was fired from Pravda Vostoka.
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Max Penson later in life, languishing without employment and growing increasingly poor. The photographer committed suicide in 1959.
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Two local girls at a parade. Despite Penson's masterful work, his contribution to photographic history has been scarcely recognized.
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Shafts of sunlight in the Hall of the Supreme Council in Tashkent. In 1998, The New York Times spoke to members of Penson's family who maintain a large archive of the photographer's work in Tashkent. "The Uzbek government is not interested in promoting him because he was not Uzbek," his son-in-law said. "But the Russian Embassy told us that they wouldn't sponsor a show because he wasn't Russian, and the Israelis told us they weren't interested because he didn't concentrate on Jewish themes. "
