Cynthia Elbaum of Ashfield died during the First Chechen War (in which Russia tried to prevent Chechnya from seceding) in 1994, covering the conflict as a photojournalist. It is all the more remarkable to view Elbaum’s photos when you learn that it’s only possible to see some of them because her fellow journalists retrieved some of her film after her death, likely at great risk to themselves.
Though the tragic context of her images would alone make them worth preserving, much of what she captured on film is extraordinary for other reasons as well. The First Chechen War was one of the final death throes of the old Soviet Union, and the gritty, drab environs of Grozny she photographed are of that older Iron Curtain world, the unmistakable, almost-clich?d setting of so many struggles in the 20th century. Chechen rebels wield tremendous guns; old women with lined faces in scarves protest; grim-faced men in fur hats hold court in muddy streets. The images seem as if they could be from 1917, 1943 or 1994.
Elbaum’s work, like the best war journalism, captures an unvarnished reality, an entirely unromantic setting in which passions have been unleashed to deadly effect. And, though she clearly did not intend it, the photos memorialize her as well, a woman pursuing important work in a volatile time and place.
One image in particular, perhaps the one most free of the obvious trappings of war, captures a certain spirit of timelessness. In it, what appears to be double exposure mixed with harsh artifical light on a rainy night, turns a trio of figures into ghosts. The three don’t seem to possess all of their parts, and the light glares so brightly behind them it’s hard to tell if it’s a streetlight or an explosion. The more you ponder the image, the more the scene hardens into the incomprehensible, the lost and unforthcoming. That image alone is enough to make viewing her work extraordinarily compelling.
Elbaum was a 1989 Smith College graduate, and many of her photos and related material are part of the college’s Sophia Smith Collection (“an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, archives, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women’s history,” according to the Smith website). In an exhibit starting this week and running through May 25, images from the seven rolls of film her fellow journalists retrieved are on display at Smith’s Neilson Library. On Saturday, May 16, her graduating class hosts a reception in her honor at the Library from 3 to 4:30 p.m.; the event is open to the public.