Moscow, People of Note

Welcome to Moscow, Lotte!

As portraiture had been, and always would be, Jacobi’s greatest strength as a photographer, it is not surprising that she would begin her stay in Moscow with some historic work in this area. First, let us look at a few of the luminaries Jacobi captured on film in Moscow.

Quickly reconnecting with Egon Erwin Kisch and other people she knew in Berlin who were in Moscow at the time, Jacobi settled into meeting with an array of writers, artists, and politicians from the USSR and abroad. Already on her second day in Moscow, she made contact with Abdurahim Hojiboyev (1900-1938), Chairman of the People’s Commissars of the Republic of Tajikistan, as well as the communist poet Abu’l Qasim Lahuti (1887-1957), an Iranian exile who had settled in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. The former was especially helpful in arranging her trip to Stalinabad two months later.

In addition to her friends from Berlin, Jacobi photographed the usual suspects who made up the welcoming committee for “fellow travelers,” or “Friends of the Soviet Union.” These she photographed on the street, in their homes, and at meetings of various groups of writers, politicians, and intellectuals.

Barbusse, Henri (1873-1935), French communist writer 

Eliat (van de Velde), Hélène (1894-1989), German-American writer and psychologist

Khodzhibaev, Abdurakhim (Abdurahim Hojiboyev) (1900-1938), the first Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of Tajikistan

Kisch, Egon Erwin (1885-1948), Czechoslovak writer and journalist

Kol'tsov, Mikhail Efimovich (1898-1940), Russian journalist, publisher, and Soviet emissary

Lahuti, Abulqasim (Abdulkasim ) (1887-1957), Soviet-Iranian communist poet

Maksum, Nusratullo (also known as Nusratullo Lutfullayev) (1881-1937), Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Tajikistan

Merkurov, Sergei Dmitrievich (1881-1952), Soviet artist

Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich (1855-1935), Russian plant geneticist

Radek, Karl Bernhardovich (1885-1939), Polish-Soviet writer and revolutionary