Photoalbum of an American Diplomat in the Revolutionary Petrograd in 1917, and Japan

[Russia; Japan; Venezuela], 1917. 89 photographs, partly mounted into a scrapbook (bound into green cloth). In different formats: XX. Many captioned on verso in ink by Walker Smith. In very good condition.. 89 photographs, partly mounted into a scrapbook (bound into green cloth). In different formats: XX. Many captioned on verso in ink by Walker Smith.

A private photo album of an American diplomat delegated to Revolutionary Russia in 1917 and later to Japan.

Fifty-seven mounted photographs in the album and thirty-two loose, black and white pictures (except one from Japan showing the Futarasan jinja, the Sacred Bridge at Nikko under reconstruction). The majority of the images were taken in Petrograd (present-day Saint Petersburg) while Martin Walker Smith stationed in the city as a member of the American diplomatic mission. The rest (of the captioned images) are from Japan, Venezuela, and Norway. Many of those images, taken in Petrograd in the upheaval year of 1917, are showing gatherings of people, demonstrations, and parades in relation to the February Revolution and the July Days. Many of the photos were senet to Martin's sister Elisabeth, Mrs. Walter C. Graeff in Lebanon, PA, and most of them are captioned on the verso by the photographer.

The February Revolution, whose main events took place in the then-capital of Russia, Petrograd, was the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917 in which the monarchy was overthrown. The insurrection broke out against food rationing on 23 February O.S., within a few days the mutinous Russian Army forces sided with the revolutionaries, and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, thus ended the Romanov dynastic rule and the Russian Empire. During the protests over 1,300 people were killed, their bodies were buried at the Field of Mars. Later in July, between 3-7 O.S. soldiers, sailors, and industrial workers were engaged in spontaneous, and more violent, armed demonstrations.

Some of these events were captured by Walker Smith and they are included into this album:

Four images are showing the funeral procession of the victims of the February Revolution (3) and the burial itself (1). Those three images of the procession, taken on the Nevsky Prospect and at the Field of Mars (Marsovo Polye), where the burial took place, showing the masses of people holding placards and banners glorifying the "martyrs of the Revolution" or simply the Proletariat. The fourth photo of this series is showing the opened mass grave with caskets and soldiers around them.

An interesting snapshot shows the masses of a "Bolshevik parade at the beginning of July", with banners of workers' unions, an interesting pictorial banner of the Metal Workers' Union, and others praising the International, and quoting the renowned political slogan from the Communist Manifesto "Workers of the world, unite!".

The collection includes (as a photo-postcard) the famous picture of the revolutionary/Bolshevik soldiers with aimed weapons (on the "Tsar's police") titled: Firing the Hideout. This image appeared in various contemporary European journals with different captions, and the picture became the symbol of the beginning of the Revolution in Petrograd.

Another image, taken in Tsarskoye Selo, shows a raid on "the private home of a merchant for provisions which he is suspected of having stored away in bulk", perpetrated by soldiers and civilians.

Two pictures represent "soldiers passing along on Nevsky Prospect on their way to the front" on July 4. Others are depicting the interiors of the American Embassy (which at the beginning operated in the building of the Austrian legation), the city of Petrograd, Martin Walker Smith, and his colleagues.

Among the photos taken in Japan the most noteworthy is a fine portrait of Catherine Breshkovsky (Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya; 1844-1934), the "grandmother of the Russian Revolution", taken in Yokohama in December 1918.

Martin Walker Smith (1877-1955) was born in Lebanon (PA), graduated at the Ursinus College and the Columbia University in 1906 and 1915, served as an American diplomat in Petrograd and later in Tokyo before teaching history at the Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio from 1921 until he retired in 1948.

Some of the photos of the present collection also appear in James Maxwell Pringle's photo album kept in the Library of Congress: James Maxwell Pringle's business trip to Russia, with scenes of the Russian Revolution, and his trip through eastern Russia, China, and Korea to Japan (PR 13 CN 2010:041 [P&P]).
However, due to the dates of Pringle's trip, and Walker Smith's captions it is improbable that those photos were taken by Pringle, who arrived in Russia on business for the First National City Bank of New York in November 1917 and extended the journey to the Far East until February 1918. Another delegate of the National City Bank, Reginald Hawby(?), appears on one of Walker Smith's photos. The National City Bank was the first American bank to open an office in Russia.

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