‘Don't look at them, they're nasty’

This article, based on interviews with a variety of informants across Russia conducted in 2005–9, as well as on amateur photographs, is an in-depth study of photographs of private funerals in twentieth-century Russian culture, and at the emotions aroused by these. ¹ In order to put the discussion in context, I will begin by looking at some examples of similar traditions that existed in Russian culture before, or at the same time as, the phenomenon of photographing funerals.