Abstract
Photography and the Crisis of Authorship: Tolstoy and the Popular Photographic Press This article traces the early history of photography in Russia from its introduction in 1839 to the for mal recognition of copyright (avtorskoe pravo) in 1911 through the figure and works of Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910). Tolstoy is analyzed as an object of photographic mania and as a subject who shaped and was shaped by photographic culture, as evidenced not only in his incorporation of photographic motifs in his literary works, but also in the role that photography played in shaping his persona as an author, spiritual leader, and pater familias in the last years of his life. Through an analysis of photographic literature from the period, as well as new works on the death of Tolstoy and photographs taken of Tolstoy by his contemporaries, Tolstoy’s literary work and authorial image are shown to encapsulate a distinctly modern “crisis of authorship” within a market system and the ever-increasing fragmentation caused by the proliferation of visual and print media.
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