Quick reference guide to photography. The charter of the Russian Photographic Society in Moscow.

Quick reference guide to photography. The charter of the Russian Photographic Society in Moscow.
M. T-vo Tipo-Litografiya I. M. Mashistov. 1914, 70, (6), 32 p. Hardcover, 11.3 x 17.5 cm. Good condition, split block, dirty cover.

The Russian Photographic Society (RFO) is the largest creative union of professional and amateur photographers in the history of the Russian Empire.

The Russian Photographic Society was founded in 1894 in the city of Moscow. The main office was located in Kalashny Lane in the house of Princess E. F. Shakhovskaya. In 1896, the first congress of Russian photographers was held in Moscow. In 1898, the Russian Federal District moved to Popov Passage.

Until 1914, the society held three congresses of Russian figures in the photo department (1896, 1908, 1911).

After the October revolution of 1917, the main backbone of the organization was made up of Muscovites and residents of the Moscow province, including N. P. Andreev, A.D. Grinberg, Yu. P. Eremin, S. K. Ivanov-Alliluyev, N. I. Svishchov, Z. Z. Vinogradov, V. I. Ulitin, P. V. Klepikov, K. V. Chibisov, B. P. Podluzsky, A.V. Donde.

The company not only did not have any financial support from outside, but also lost almost all of its property during the nationalization. In the period from 1917 to 1922, the Russian Federation practically lost the opportunity to help young talents, and many of them were never able to open up. Those masterpieces that were not put on hand-rolled cigarettes and did not go into the pockets of the Bolsheviks, arrived in 1922 at the State Historical Museum. With great efforts, photography enthusiasts managed to get the Soviet government to restore the status of an independent organization under the State Academy of Art Sciences (at that time, only 180 people remained in the Russian Federation).

In 1928, the board of the RFO made an attempt to spread the organization's activities throughout the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In February of the same year, a few months before the reorganization of the RFD into the VFO, the VTSIK and the SNK of the USSR issued a decree "On Approval of the Regulations on companies and Unions that do not pursue profit-making purposes". The instructions of the NKVD ordered the All-Russian Photographic organization to submit a request for re-registration no later than February 1, 1929. The Board of the VFO submitted all the necessary documents in a timely manner, but did not receive a response from the security officers. The reason for the silence of the NKVD is explained by a devastating ten-page article in the "Soviet Photographic Almanac" for 1929. The Board of the VFO, due to all these circumstances, was left with no choice but to dissolve itself. In 1930, the organization ceased to exist, and its place was taken by the builders of communism, who almost always preferred the ideological component of the artistic component.