browseThe Lost Boys by Heidi Bradner
Saturday 5 February to Sunday 30 March 2005
Can a dog go there? Where a dog can go, a Russian soldier can go too.
General Grabbé, Russian commander, Chechen Wars, 1800s.
Portraits of Russian Soldiers
In this linked exhibition to A Decade of War in Chechnya, Heidi Bradner focuses on the Russian teenage conscripts: faces and moments from a brutal war.
As I observed and spoke to Russian soldiers over the course of the conflict, I often found them less judgmental, less influenced by propaganda than their superiors. I thought about the role of the Caucasus in the Russian psyche and identity as I listened to them. Historically, it has always been a place that has captivated writers and artists, inspiring them to write about it in some of their greatest works.
Chechnya and the Caucasus loom prominently in masterpieces by Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy. I thought of the historical prism through which Chechens and Russians have looked at each other. When photographing this generation of Russian young men all caught up in an unbelievably cruel newround of hostilities I began wondering which of them might write about it. I imagined an anti-Romantic work for the 21st century, a piece of writing that might triumph over the blatant control of the media in President Putin's Russia. Such a new work, I liked to hope, would cut through propaganda to show the true nature of this conflict. Heidi Bradner