Everyday Life of White–Guard Omsk in the Lens of American Camera (1919): Revisiting Attribution of a Little–Known Source

УДК 94(47) + 086(654.19)

DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2019-2-357-374

Maksim M. Stelmak

Omsk State Technical University, Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, Omsk, Russian Federation

Dmitry I. Petin

Omsk State Technical University, Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, Omsk, Russian Federation

Everyday Life of White–Guard Omsk in the Lens of American Camera (1919): Revisiting Attribution of a Little–Known Source

Abstract

In 2000s there appeared in the Internet video materials on the Civil War in Russia made by military journalists of the Allied Intervention. Most noteworthy of these is a newsreel made by the American military mission in January–February 1919. Of particular interest is it part shot in Omsk. Although it is of great informative value, the researchers have overlooked this historical newsreel; its analysis and scientific attribution have not been made. The authors have rectified this by conducting a study involving various historical sources, scientific literature and memoirs. The study has resulted in the description of buildings and places on the film in accordance with its video sequence. It also provides a detailed explanation on agencies housed in the buildings in 1919, when Admiral A. V. Kolchak’s government was in power, and on their current holders. Attribution of the American newsreel, which captured Omsk in 1919, allows to reconstruct daily life of this provincial city and once-upon-a-time capital of anti-Bolshevik Russia. The analysis highlights subjects that were of most interest to the American allies. The reel shows different sides of everyday life in White Omsk, of the Supreme ruler and of the refugees. At the same time, it provides some specific, yet important to historians, details of Omsk urbanism of a hundred years ago. Visual sources are rarely used by researchers of the Civil War. Thus, the publication is of immediate interest to military historians studying the Civil War and Allied Intervention, as well as experts in the history of Siberia, source studies, and history of everyday life.

Keywords

Sources, film document, newsreels, Kolchak, Omsk, Civil War, white movement, intervention, local history, everyday life.

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About authors

Stelmak Maxim Maksimovich, PhD in History, Omsk State Technical University, national history department, senior lecturer; Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, Centre for Studying the Civil War History, chief archivist, +7-950-796-58-38, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Petin Dmitrii Igorevich, PhD in History, associate professor, Omsk State Technical University, national history department, assistant professor; Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, Centre for Studying the Civil War History, chief archivist, +7-950-333-56-81, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted 26.09.2018, published (for Citation):

STELMAK, M. M., PETIN, D. I. Povsednevnost' belogvardeiskogo Omska v ob"ektive amerikanskoi kinokamery 1919 g.: k voprosu atributsii maloizvestnogo istochnika [Everyday Life of White–Guard Omsk in the Lens of American Camera (1919): Revisiting Attribution of a Little–Known Source. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an Archivist, 2019, no. 2, pp. 357-374. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2019-2-357-374