Broken Dream: 20 Years of War in Eastern Europe [Hardcover]

Antonin Kratochvil (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1997

Born in Czechoslovakia but forced to live most of his life in exile, photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil has spent the past twenty years documenting the tumultuous upheaval taking place in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Through his extensive travels in Albania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union -- and during return trips to the land of his birth -- he photographed life during the depths of the Cold War at a time when few photojournalists were willing to partake in such a dangerous adventure. This unflinching narrative of an era of immense corruption, pollution, loneliness, and terror reveals an unknown and desolate world of workers, gypsies, thieves, street kids, and refugees, where as the photographer says, "All I wanted to do was record how these poor people adapted to lies and suffering, how they got used to it, in fact, that they were bound to miss it when it was over."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Antonin Kratochvil is a photojournalist based in New York. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Smithsonian, Condé Nast Traveler, and Geo, and his work has been exhibited in New York, Milan, Munich, Cologne, Prague, Houston, and Perpignan. Among his many awards are the prestigious Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for Journalist of the Year (1991) and the Leica Medal of Excellence for outstanding achievement in documentary photography (1994).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: The Monacelli Press; First Edition edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885254784
• ISBN-13: 978-1885254788
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 0.8 x 11.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,580,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strong Photojournalism, March 25, 2005

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Broken Dream: 20 Years of War in Eastern Europe (Hardcover)

Czech exile photojournalist Kratochivil's first book is a collection of his work in Eastern Europe, mainly in Poland, Romania, and Russia from 1976-80 and then 1989-95. The seventy black and white images are laid out one per spread, giving each stark image room to breathe. There are three running themes to the work, religious practice and rites, the transition from socialism to capitalism, and most strikingly, humanity overwhelmed by a horrific landscape of its own making. The religious photos aren't that striking, and are of the usual stuff, Eastern Orthodox rites, funerals, festivals, processions and the like. There is, however, one symbolically powerful photo of a modern cemetery in the Czech Republic consisting of running walls of aboveground crypts that bear a striking resemblance to the soulless apartment blocks in the background. The political transition photos are quite good, though typical of the genre: statues of Lenin lying in scrap heaps, the wealthy feasting, the poor starving, a demonstration in Poland, people shying away from the camera, and so on.

The real strength of the book lies in the third kind of photos. A huge earth-moving machine looming over a man and child, a grim shadow of a man in the smoke of an industrial town, masked men and dogs in Chernobyl, two men dismantling a tank with giant cranes hovering above them, men leaning on the rail of a crumbling Polish apartment building, figures walking through the black smoke of a Romanian tar factory, and most moving of all, children playing in the benighted landscape of industrial wasteland. Of particular interest are a series depicting "gazari", poor people who make a short and precarious living digging gasoline out of the ground near a leaking petroleum refinery. All of this makes for pretty depressing viewing, albeit one that photojournalism aficionados will find very compelling. A strong collection that will obviously have particular resonance for those with an interest in modern Eastern Europe.

Note: A reasonably good web search will lead you to a site where about fifty of the photos are available for viewing on a small scale.

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Book, Great Photographs, January 14, 2008

By 

K. Lorenzi - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Broken Dream: 20 Years of War in Eastern Europe (Hardcover)

This book is well designed and laid out. Kratochvil's work shows us Eastern Europe through his singular, strong vision. He is clearly not afraid to take risks when framing his subjects and this works to his advantage creating mystery in some of the photos and pulling the viewer into the scene. Certainly a good buy.