A. A. Nasvetevich's Photographs as a Historical Source: An Overview of the Heritage of Museums, Archives, and Libraries

The purpose of this article is to analyze the creative legacy of the Russian photographer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, A. A. Nasvetevich, which is stored in the collections of the Information Historical and Scientific Center – the Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as in the collections of museums, archives, and libraries in Russia. This is due to the fact that the rather extensive legacy of A.A. Nasvetevich, who worked in the genre of documentary, portrait and species photography, has been little studied, as it is dispersed in albums, sets and individual photographs on the funds of various institutions. The subjects of his photographic images are objects of architecture, city landscapes, portraits of contemporaries, various solemn events with the participation of members of the imperial family, scenes from the life of the Russian army. In some cases, the available photographs are not described, which means they have not been put into public and scientific circulation. The fund of the Information Scientific Reference Center of the Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces contains a folder with previously unknown photographs of A. Nasvetevich, which have to be studied. This article reflects the first stage of scientific work to identify previously unknown photographs that expand the range of visual sources related to the history of the royal family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as a number of historical events of that time. The source base for the preparation of the article are books and periodicals, websites of museums, archives, libraries, unpublished documents, correspondence with leading experts in the field of the history of photography.

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