| | | Dmitry Ermakov
Georgia at the crossroads of Modernity
(1870-1905)
The collection of Dimitry Ermakov (1846-1916) held at the Georgian National Museum consists of approximately 128 albums, 17,434 prints, 14,100 glass plate negatives and 3,000 stereo cards, as well as registers and sales catalogues that Ermakov used in his shop. The collection depicts a great variety of ethnic groups, people, cities, architectural monuments in the Caucasus and Asia Minor of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Dimitry Ermakov was a leading photographer in Georgia and the wider Caucasian and Asian Minor during an interesting period in the history of the region. He documented places and groups of people that have undergone major changes in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia as well as in Turkey and Persia. Dimitry Ermakov traveled and photographed also in Samarkand and Bukhara in Central Asia, in the Russian Republics of Dagestan, Circassia, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in the Crimea. This collection is a resource of considerable cultural and historic importance in understanding the region during a period of immense changes.
Georgia, situated at the crossroads of Europe to Asia, has always been recognized as the cultural center of the Caucasus. Because of Georgia’s geo-political location and because it has continually striven towards Western values, any European trend introduced here has been adopted surprisingly quickly.
In 1839, in Paris, François Aragó, a famous scientist and politician, announced the invention of photography by Daguerre. A few years later the photographic process became popular in Georgia just as it had in European capitals of Paris, London and Berlin, Tbilisi was also charmed by the newly invented process of “capturing stable images by means of a light beam.”
According to Aragó, photography “would not only support the development of art but also science.” In Georgia of the 1850s, like France, England and Germany, this new European invention took root very quickly. However, unlike Europe, the development of photography in Georgia was not accompanied by heated discussions on the recognition of photography as art, nor did anybody call the photographic process that “diabolical art from France,” (as it was referred to in German periodical Leipziger Anzeiger). Georgian society immediately recognized the European novelty as a medium of modernity that permitted observation of the world during its period of industrialization and created the ground for a new view of the world.
Dimitry Ermakov (1846-1916) is distinguished among the group of photographers who started their careers in Georgia between 1850 and 1890. This generation of photographers created unique visual annals of historical changes; work which apart from its documentary importance, also has a highly artistic value. The subjects revealed in Dimitry Ermakov’s archive are extremely rich: the construction of Caucasian railroad, development of the ports of Batumi and Poti, Tbilisi industrial exhibition, archeological and ethnographic expeditions, expeditions to Svaneti and other regions of Georgia, a journey to Sukhum-Kale, political rallies in Tbilisi and Telavi, the industrialization
of Georgia and urban development, the countries of the South Caucasus, Persia, Turkey, Central Asia, Russia, and significant cultural events in North Caucasus.
This archive is not only a fascinating part of Georgia’s graphic legacy, but is also an important part of the world’s photographic heritage, and continues to be researched. The Georgian National Musem collection includes the images by other photographers working in Georgia during that period, such as Alexander Rionashvili, Vladimir Barkanov, Alexander Engel, Eduard Klar, Vittorio Sella, Boris Mishchenko and several unknowns.
In 1918, Dimitry Ermakov’s collection was jointly bought by Georgian historical and ethnographic societies and Tbilisi State University. In 1930 the archive was donated to the Georgian National Museum. The collection is presently preserved in the Georgian National Museum. From 2000-2010, the Georgian National Museum, the Horizon Foundation of Netherlands and Rotterdam Photo Museum carried out Dimitry Ermakov’s photographic archive restoration and conservation project. A portion of this 10-year effort to restore Ermakov’s archive, including several series of photos made in Georgia, is being exhibited to the public for first time. These images reveal Georgia’s historically unique cultural and geographic condition, at the crossroads of European civilization, an achievement made possible through the mystery of photography.
Courtesy of the Georgian National Museum
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