The Marking of Absence: What is Contained in the Archive of Iryna Pap

Abstract

Iryna Pap, a Ukrainian photographer whose oeuvre was recently rediscovered, stands out starkly in her moment, and the significance of her legacy continues to grow. As a female newcomer to the male-dominated world of Soviet photography, and as such almost unique in her profession, Pap worked for Izvestia, one of the USSR’s newspapers of record from 1958 to 1971. Later on, she launched the first professional School of Journalistic Excellence at the Journalists’ Union of Ukraine, thus shaping the next generation of Ukrainian photographers, some of whom are still active in the field. Pap’s photographs are scattered around different archives in Russia and Ukraine, although, as of 1991, a big portion of them have been rescued and are now preserved at the Fotohof Archiv in Salzburg. This paper provides a brief overview of Pap’s biography, the scope of her work and the problems posed by her archive, and suggests some methodological approaches that may help to address her legacy.