NEWSWATCH: “THE LOST ARCHIVE OF MAJOR MARTIN MANHOFF” – Douglas Smith/ Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

August 8, 2017 JRL Russia List Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

“… In early 1952, Martin and Jan moved to the Soviet Union, where he was to serve as assistant military attaché in the US Embassy, then located directly across from the Kremlin on Mokhovaya Street. They remained there for two years when Martin was expelled from the USSR on espionage charges. The couple returned to Washington state …. Martin died in 2005, Jan in 2014. … The executrix … placed all of their Russian things in a number of boxes. … dozens of books, hundreds of postcards, and some tourist maps … then I came across a stack of 16mm metal film canisters. … digging though the boxes. I found one full of photographic slides. … I was soon convinced this was a major historical find. Martin had taken color photographs throughout the USSR, capturing daily life in Stalin’s Russia like nothing I had seen before. He had shot color movie footage from automobiles and trains and even captured Stalin’s funeral from the embassy. … a unique visual record of the Soviet Union. * * * The entire, four-part series can now be viewed on RFE’s site. The material published so far is just a fraction of the entire archive. My plan is to donate the complete Manhoff collection (films, slides, letters, and ephemera) to the University of Washington library where it will be cataloged, preserved, and made available to the public. Before that, however, I am exploring the possibility of publishing a book ….”