ABSTRACT
Utilizing both Alan Trachtenberg's concepts of fragmented historical narratives and Walter Benjamin's concepts of history and profane illumination, this chapter demonstrates the ways in which Sudek creates images that are politically subversive in their views of history, loss, and progress within the political climate of postwar Czechoslovakia. It also examines the ways in which the failures of the panorama might be viewed as reparative, offering entry points for intervention in and engagement with the past so the people can more actively inform our present, bearing witness to both loss and renewal. Sudek's choice to comprise the Sad Landscapes series of panoramic images was a deliberate one, as evidenced both by his fascination with the panorama as a child-when he created wide-angled images by pasting prints together-and by the great lengths to which Sudek went in order to make panoramic images. The photographs' subjects-decimated, industrialized landscapes, dead trees, ruined buildings, and cities-visually convey loss, injustice, and senseless death and destruction.
