Architectural History of Kazan in photographs (by Frank Whitson Fetter)

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the architectural history of Kazan depicted in photographs by an American economist Frank Whitson Fetter (1902-1991). He visited the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the summer of 1930. During this visit he spent 6 weeks in Kazan, the capital of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Here Fetter studied the Russian language with a tutor. At present, the photographs he took in Kazan are kept at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. As an amateur photographer, Fetter took many photographs of Kazan and its outskirts. But his photos differ from tourists’ typical snapshots. Fetter had an interest in the Soviet propaganda. Historic and architectural sights were captured by the photographer if only they were paired with the information of the ideological or economic content. Nevertheless, Fetter`s photographs contain much important information about the architectural history of Kazan. The authors made an attempt to examine Fetter`s series of photographs which was named “Disappearing Kazan” (precisely, “Kazan Temples”). The leading research method used in this study is a dichotomy of concepts -visible/ invisible. The findings of this research can be of some interest to historians.