The Stalin Cult

Starred review from February 15, 2002
A vast society, long in collapse, officially shattered when the Soviet Union was dismantled in the early 1990s. Sherbell, an award-winning documentary photographer, spent three years capturing that extended moment of cultural change. Here, 230 of his intense black-and-white images detail discomfort, agony, and closely held hope. Most of the photographs depict a hard reality; encased in a landscape colored by shades of gray, people are dominated by ironworks and cracked statues, isolated by deep snows and cement expanses, and wearied by scarce goods and bruising labor. But Sherbell proves himself to be a keen humorist as well. Several key images such as a fire hose poked through a door; a woman suspended above Siberia's summer mud in her home, made from a renovated gas tank; and a Kilroyesque bust of Lenin provide necessary comic relief, just as the many photographs of people expressing all kinds of feelings solidify the presence of an active human spirit. This expansive collection, unique in its range and artistic vision, is recommended for all libraries. Rebecca Miller, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2001
For three years (1991-93), photographer Sherbell, working for the German magazine " Der Spiegel," canvased the Soviet Union for images of a society that many sensed was about to change drastically. Although his pictures reach American eyes 8 to 10 years later, that doesn't diminish their impact at all. All done in black and white, they are gray and grim, raw and rueful, lightened only occasionally by a smile, a celebration, a moment of prayer. Displayed thematically in chapters on everyday life, work, religious practice, imprisonment, coal and oil production, "Magnitka" (the largest, most polluting steelworks in the world), and change as Communism collapsed, they appear mostly at near-monumental scale, bled to the edges of 13-inch-tall pages. Reflecting the realities of most Soviet citizens, they are full of dilapidated mass housing, antiquated industrial facilities, barren shops, and hard manual labor. Sherbell tersely describes the situation and import of each picture in notes at the ends of the chapters, disclosing such frightening facts behind the images as that half the imprisoned are alcoholics and 40 percent of teenage prisoners come from fatherless families, that the environmental damage wreaked by the huge Sakhalin Island oil fields during 70 years' operation may require 80 years to repair even minimally, and that life expectancy in many parts of the old union was only 50 years when the pictures were made. The last sentence in the book asks, "Will this ever become a 'normal country'?" Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that question.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)