Davide Monteleone: Spasibo

Davide Monteleone is an Italian photographer. He won World Press Photo awards in 2007, 2009, and 2011. Since 2019 Monteleone is a National Geographic Storytelling Fellow.

Chechnya – 

 “Chechnya has won, Russia has won”. Perhaps the losers are the many Chechens who chose to go into exile as a matter of honour. Those who stayed have returned to a normal life and can satisfy their basic needs after several decades of hardship. Such a “normal” life, however, requires them to make major compromises and often hold their tongues.

Today Chechnya is an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation, subdued and pacified by force after centuries of rebellion against Moscow. Putin protégé president Ramzan Kadyrov holds absolute power and has almost limitless support from Moscow.

Davide Monteleone is well acquainted with the complex, tor- mented life of ordinary Chechens. He has crisscrossed the coun- try, stopping in cities and villages, mountains and forests. This book contains neither majestic city- or country-scapes nor blood- spattered depictions of violence. Monteleone rather shows us the otherwise invisible: the stifling atmosphere, the regnant hel- plessness and fear, the young women resigned to their fate, and the elderly, whose traditional authority has diminished in the fa- ce of Kadyrov’s brutes.

But Monteleone’s photographs also depict hope. Chechens are a mountain people who have endured wars and other atrocities for centuries, including the collective deportation to the arid Kazakh steppes and to Siberia under Stalin in 1944. They know how to re- sist, and they know when to wait. Strong by nature, they are ab- le to laugh even amidst adversity, and they sustain a birthrate that repopulates the land and replaces the dead. They know per- fectly well that this dictatorial regime will fall sooner or later, as it has in other Muslim countries.«Galia Ackerman

“Thank you Ramzan, thank you Russia” for everything. “Spasibo”

 

Documentary about Chechnya today, winner of the 4th Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award

 

Edited by Nathalie Gallon, Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award
Texts by Gala Ackermann, Masha Gessen

Hardcover, 24 x 28 cm

164 pages and 16 pages booklet 86 duotone ills.
English / French

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag
ISBN 978-3-86828-466-9

Photography

Related Posts

Colin Pantall on Kazuma Obara “Silent Histories”

Japan – Grave of the Fireflies is an anime film about the Second World War in Japan.  The main characters …

Eamonn Doyle: “i”

Ireland –   I started photographing in and around Dublin city centre in the late 1980s, but I took something …

The PhotoBookMuseum by Schaden Foundation

Germany –    The PhotoBookMuseum (The_PBM) pays tribute to the central form of expression in photography: the photobook. To introduce …

Hossein Farmani: “Many French organisations think that they own photography”

U.S.A – Hossein Farmani lends himself to the very forefront of the arts community; his passions have led him to …

Hans Gremmen: ‘Peeling off the layers’- Understanding the link between Photobooks and Design

Netherlands –  Hans Gremmen is a talented designer based in Amsterdam known for his innovative work with photo books. Regularly …

Ines Dumig Apart Together

Ines Dumig: “Apart Together” – Regaining the lost Identity

Germany –  According to the International Organisation of Migration, there are over 200 million migrants worldwide and the geographic region …

Beijing Silvermine -Thomas Sauvin

China – Beijing Silvermine started in May 2009 out of my meeting with a man called Xiaoma, who works in a recycling …

Video: Emaho Mussoorie Workshop with Cristina de Middel & Ricardo Cases in collaboration with IED Madrid

Organized by EMAHO and IED MADRID Dated: June 19-22nd June,2014 India The recent success of the Spanish photobook has produced much curiosity and …

Douglas Stockdale: Pine Lake

USA – Pine Lake is a fictional story about a multi-generational American rite of summer. It is a visual narrative that investigates …