The Edwardians In Colour - 03 - Europe on the Brink (PART 2)

EDWARDIANS IN COLOUR: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF ALBERT KAHN
BBC Two: The full series starts Friday 16 November 2007 7.30pm-8pm

The Archive of the Planet was the brainchild of the millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn. Between 1908 and 1930, he used his vast personal fortune to generate what is now generally acknowledged to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world. At the time Kahn embarked on this project, colour photography was still in its infancy. It was only a year before the Archive was created that the legendary French inventors Auguste and Louis Lumière had marketed the autochrome - the world's first user-friendly photographic system capable of taking true colour pictures.

Almost straight away, Kahn acquired one. It's not difficult to see why Kahn was so beguiled: the autochrome system produces images of mesmerising beauty. As an idealist and an internationalist, Kahn believed that he could use this system to promote peace and greater understanding among the world's cultures. So he spent a fortune to hire photographers and send them to more than 50 countries all over the world. Altogether, they shot more than 72,000 colour pictures (as well as about 100 hours of film footage) recording everything from religious rituals and cultural practices to momentous political events all over the world.

They took the earliest known colour pictures in countries as far apart as Vietnam and Brazil, Mongolia and Norway, Japan and Benin. As pet projects go, this was very ambitious - and vastly expensive. Yet undaunted by the cost, Kahn bankrolled this enterprise for more than 20 years. Kahn's photographers undertook these intrepid expeditions without the global transit systems we take for granted today. Often, they arrived in these countries at crucial junctures in their history. For example, they recorded the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires - and the birth of completely new states in Europe and the Middle East. During World War I, Kahn's photographers observed soldiers as they cooked their meals and laundered their uniforms behind the front lines at The Battle of Verdun. They watched the world's most powerful men when they convened for the post-war negotiations at Versailles.

No doubt Kahn expected to have the financial wherewithal to sustain it indefinitely. But events delivered a hammer-blow to his plans. At the start of 1929, Kahn was still one of the richest men in Europe. But by the end of the year the Wall Street Crash had reduced the financial empire of one of Europe's most successful financiers to rubble.

Yet by then, Kahn had already amassed one of the most important photographic collections in the world. A century after he launched his project, Albert Kahn's dazzling pictures put colour into what we almost always think of as an exclusively monochrome age.

The first five episodes in this series form an important part of BBC Four's Edwardians season and are grouped together under the title Edwardians in Colour. The final four episodes will be screened as part of a forthcoming season of programmes on the Twenties.
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The three parts that I uploaded feature the Balkans, focusing on Macedonia. The pictures taken are of those living in Salonika (Thessaloníki) and Monastir (Bitola).

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Balkans
• Macedonia
• WWI
• World
• War
• Balkan
• Wars
• Bulgaria
• Greece
• Serbia
• Turkey
• Ottoman
• Empire
• Nationalism
• Salonika
• Monastir

[Dragan22]

In "Macedonia" few describe them selfs as Macedonian, LOL of course, because Macedonia, is a made up nation of FYROM monkeys.

[itrajkoski]

Idiots like you give your otherwise respectable country (at least towards Macedonia) a bad name.

If you watched the whole documentary you would have learned that all of the Balkan peoples(including modern day Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians) did not identify by their respective nationalities.

The ideas of 'nation states', 'nationality', and 'ethnicity' were unheard of to these peoples.

The most important identifier for these peoples (probably the only one) was their religion.

[KomitaMKD]

abe ilce brisi gi komentarive od pederive me nerviret

[itrajkoski]

It's better that I leave them, so everyone can see how idiotic and racist many of our neighbors are...

[zBani]

what do you mean that someone like the, obviously (Serb-oan) Dragan22 gives a bad name? I dont see that as possible... usually its the opposite of truth, what chetniks say, and very close to insanity, as the 1990s show...

[alexnetea]

Thank you for this pieces of diamonds!!!

[PifchoBG]

this film for 9999999 time prove that "macedonian nation" dont exist. thank you for recognize that fact.

[halandreos79]

@sarajlija1983

[halandreos79]

@sarajlija1983 ASSHOLE!

[owtatowttowt]

love this series.

[LiviuFloreaRo]

They are Lumiere autochromes

[teebee1984]

They are real

[3investigators]

Are theses actual color photographs or were they hand tinted?

[sarajlija1983]

The Muslim population did not go, but was massacred and killed by the barbaric Greek!!! And this Greek peasant commentator who portends to be a English aristocrat is a racist asshole.. I cant believe that BBC used this asshole to tell a story