The Edwardians In Colour - 03 - Europe on the Brink (PART 1)

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

[BasilMacedon]

makemakemakedonija...... there is not even one reffer to "Macedonian or Fyromian nation". It states clearly Greeks, Jews, Bulgarians and Turks. Am I wrong? :)

[itrajkoski]

In the beginning of part 3, it talks about the different movements within Macedonia (Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, and 'Indigenous' aka Macedonian).

[qwertdfsf7]

Mr itrajkoski

Indigenous can mean anything and not necessary -macedonians-

[itrajkoski]

sure...by indegenous they meant albianian, turkish, or vlach right?

[owtatowttowt]

saw this fan it came on first tome round & enjoyed it thoroughly.

[zBani]

They changed the flag because of the political circumstances. Pressure, oppression poverty and , even the peace and humans lives were at stake. Like all of the ex-yu countries. Do you even know, can you even begin to imagine how does that look like? Do you think it was changed cause"they" liked it better that way?Or cause they didn't know what it means?They/we were threatened. It's not nice to call someone (you don't know )an idiot?

[zBani]

Dianatomia PLEASE read some ethnography dating as far as 19th and early 20th century! from bosnian, serbian, etc ethnologists. that would guarantee you some*at least) objectivity...

[zBani]

Context, knowledge that cannot just be washed away, or wiped out. "Now you are Greek/American/Macedonian/Bulg­arian/Dutch" and simply neglect the language, your mother's father's friend's teacher's brother's sister's knowledge of the world, of their place in it.Their place defined by their identity. In this case ethnic.People who migrate for example in US, never forget where they come from.For example AfroAmericans.For example Aegean Macedonians even though they were repressed actively,and they

[zBani]

I wish you wew aware how distasteful is what you are saying. I am intentionally not intellectualizing, i deliberately won't try to "gamble" with historical, ethnological anthropological arguments here, or try to, because youtube it's not a place for that kind of discussion.

And, also, i think that you cannot argue how people felt, about themselves. You cannot argue how he felt about his ethnic/national identity. They lived with it, with that specific, complex, cultural and spiritual context

[Dianatomia]

You are a Macedonian Slav to be more precise. Your grandfather (born in 1914 as you say) may well have claimed to be a Macedonian. De-Bulgarization (Macedonism) began after the Balkan wars. Your grandfather would have been part of that poces growing up as a child.

[zBani]

i am a Macedonian.

can you argue about that. about what my... grandad used to tell me for example(b.1914)... he used to tell me he was Macedonian too...

[georgegto]

1829?What about the flag of 'macedonia', do u even know what it means the star? Great Alexander did he live on 1829?Ur grandparents has brainwashed u idiot..Ask the govermand of 'Macedoania' why did they changed the flag from G.A. symbol?

[Dianatomia]

Maybe a bird whispered it in your ear. There never was a Macedonian ethnic group. There were different ethnic groups in Macedonia, but not a Macedonian ethnic group.

[VTEKEN]

Dinatomia,did you not hear the part where they mention the ethnic people of Macedonia.

They are the real Macedonians, the people who lost their identity through 100's of years occupation by Roman & Ottoman Empires.

The Greeks identity was made up in 1829 to weaken the Ottoman rule and for England & France to have a puppet in the Balkans aka Greece. Russia's puppet was Bulgaria in 1878.