Nick Lee

Lenin and Stalin at Gorki, just outside of Moscow, September 1922

There’s a strange, almost theatrical quality to the moment when two of the 20th century’s most consequential figures sat together at Gorki in 1922. By then, the Russian Revolution’s victorious whirlwind was slowing, but beneath the surface, new storms were brewing. Lenin, the ideological engine of the Bolsheviks, was well aware that the revolution he’d birthed was at a crossroads—and that the men surrounding him were already thinking about what came next.

[Read more…] about 5 Historical Photos That Speak Volumes

Outside of the Headquarters of National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, 1914

In an era when women were rallying, marching, and risking arrest to win the right to vote, here was a group—led and largely staffed by women—fighting fiercely to preserve the status quo. The building itself was unassuming, yet from its doors poured pamphlets, petitions, and editorials warning of the dangers women’s suffrage would supposedly bring: a disruption of social order, the decline of the family, and chaos in politics. Signs and banners would have declared the group’s purpose in bold letters, standing as both a literal and symbolic barrier to progress.

[Read more…] about 16 Fascinating Photos Collected From History

Russian conscript with his family before being deployed to the front, Karachev, Bryansk, Russia, 1943.

Karachev, Bryansk Oblast, 1943. A Russian conscript holds his family like he’s trying to memorize them by touch.

He’s not crying. He can’t afford to. His face is clenched, eyes fixed on something just beyond the frame—something far off and final. War. It’s already reached him. It’s there in the weight of the uniform on his back, the roughness of the wool, the burn of the sun on his neck. But mostly, it’s in the way his mother breaks against him. Her face twisted in a cry too deep for sound. She’s holding him like a lifeline, like a dam about to burst, like if she lets go for even a second the entire world will crack in two.

[Read more…] about 5 Historic Photos That Speak Volumes