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Axelbank (Herman) motion picture film collection
79073
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Title: Herman Axelbank motion picture film collection
Date (inclusive): 1896-1977
Collection Number: 79073
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
271 motion picture film reels, 1 manuscript box, 2 oversize boxes
(27.0 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Depicts major events in the twentieth-century Russian history, including the Russian Revolution and World Wars I and II, the
tsarist family and court, communist political and military leaders, and scenes of economic, social, and cultural activities
in the Soviet Union.
source:
Axelbank, Herman, 1900-1979
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Originals closed; access copies available of reels 1-30, 32-36, 40-42, 47, 62, 90, 93, 97, 99, and 118-123. Materials materials
must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection,
they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
[Footage identification], Herman Axelbank motion picture film collection, [Reel number], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
The Hoover Institution acquired the Herman Axelbank motion picture film collection in 1979 from the family of the late Herman
Axelbank. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Alexander Kulakoff, who is a general partner of the Harrington-Kulakoff Development Company,
Palo Alto, California, donated funds to describe, index, and produce preservation and use copies of the first 28 reels of
the collection. Without his financial assistance, the Herman Axelbank collection could not be made available for research
by the scholarly community.
Herman Axelbank (1900-1979) devoted his energies for over fifty years to compiling a motion picture film chronicle of the
last years of Imperial Russia, the Russian revolutions, and the new government which emerged from the upheaval. He was born
in the village of Novo-Konstantinov, in the Russian Empire, on May 30, 1900; his family moved to New York in 1909. Fascinated
with film-making from childhood, Axelbank got a job, in 1916, as an office boy for Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) at Goldwyn
Pictures on Forty-second Street. The news of the February Revolution in Russia captured the young Axelbank's imagination.
"Wish I could take moving pictures over there; we don't have any of our own [American Revolution] in 1775," he remembered
remarking to a co-worker.
At about that time Axelbank met a cameraman whose assignments took him to Eastern Europe. Axelbank commissioned him to film
Lenin and Trotsky, pawning his possessions and borrowing from friends in order to pay the cameraman's advance. In 1922 the
cameraman returned with film of such events as the Kronstadt Mutiny of March 1921 and the Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries
of 1922. With such a beginning, Axelbank's film archive was already noteworthy; in the 1920's the Pathe, International, and
Fox news services, and even the Soviet government, purchased film from him.
Axelbank soon acquired film taken on the German, Austrian, and Turkish fronts during World War I, film of the Tsar and his
family, and of scenes from pre-revolutionary Russia, including provincial towns as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg. In most
instances the names of the cameramen and other circumstances surrounding the filming have not been preserved. Surviving bills
of sale from the 1920's show that Jawitz Pictures Corporation sold Axelbank film footage of the Provisional Government (cameramen:
Darovsky, Himmel, Rizhok, Borisof, Slonim, and Dzhakel), Petrograd and Moscow during the Russian Revolution (cameraman: Thompson),
and the Lenin funeral; Noxall Film Company sold him footage on Tsarist Russia, Denikin, and Kolchak (cameramen: Risemann,
Kubelik, and Hoffman); and Robitschek, Ehrlich and Company sold him footage of the city of Moscow. Other records were destroyed
in a 1959 fire at the facility where Axelbank stored his flammable nitrate film. Many other acquisitions of the 1930's through
the 1950's were accomplished by means of verbal agreements.
In 1918 Axelbank attended a lecture by John Reed and later did some filming for the Friends of Soviet Russia, but he never
became deeply involved in politics. His primary interest remained his historical film project.
In 1921 Axelbank assisted the Friends of Soviet Russia in making the film "Russia Through the Shadows," which was shown to
raise funds for Soviet famine relief. In 1922 he made the three-reel documentary "With the Movie Camera Through the Bolshevik
Revolution" using the footage he had already collected. Meanwhile, he continued collecting more film from cameramen and emigres,
sometimes making trips to Europe and concluding the deals at some risk to himself. In 1924 he made "The Truth About Russia."
He regarded these feature films as the means to raise money for his collecting efforts and as the groundwork for his film
"Tsar to Lenin."
In December 1928 Axelbank contacted Max Eastman, who had published "Lenin's Testament" in the West, and asked for his assistance
in the editing and narration of "Tsar to Lenin." The project took about one year. (One of the narrators whose voice appears
in the early reels of the Herman Axelbank Film Collection is Eastman.) During this period Eastman went to Prinkipo Island
to film Trotsky and his family in exile there. "Tsar to Lenin" premiered at the Filmarte Theater in New York on March 6, 1937.
Its presentation of the role of Trotsky and the Old Bolsheviks in the Revolution aroused the ire of American Communists loyal
to Stalin's line. They picketed the theaters in which the film was shown.
Through the years Axelbank attributed events such as his being followed, thefts of film, and the 1959 fire in the facility
where his film was stored to continuing Soviet displeasure with his film collecting efforts. Ironically, in the 1960's and
early 1970's representatives of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Marxism-Leninism showed interest in buying
the early reels of Axelbank's film collection. In all probability they were interested in filling in gaps in their own film
records of Trotsky and other revolutionaries whom Stalin had eliminated from the Soviet film archives as well as from life.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Herman Axelbank Film Collection consists of 266 reels containing over 250,000 feet of film, primarily newsreel and documentary
footage. The editing of the film and its chronological arrangement are the work of Axelbank. As attested by the desire of
the Soviet representatives to purchase the first forty-four reels of the collection, the footage on these reels, taken during
the period from about 1901 to 1937, is extremely rare; some portions are unique. Included are the Tsar, his family, and associates
in moments of relaxation as well as at official ceremonies; the Russian revolutions of 1917; the Civil War, with especially
good coverage of Siberia and the Far East; and revolutionary and governmental leaders of the Tsarist, Provisional Government,
and Soviet periods. There is also extensive coverage of World War II. Ceremonial events, such as May Day and October Revolution
anniversaries and funerals of prominent figures, including Tolstoy and Lenin, are well represented. Coverage extends into
the 1970's. Some Soviet feature films, such as "Kombrig Ivanov," made in 1923, are also included. According to Dr. Raymond
Fielding, a leading film expert, the Axelbank Collection is "undoubtedly the largest and most valuable film collection devoted
to the subject of revolutionary and pre-revolutionary Russia in the Western hemisphere, and probably in the Western world."
The original film held by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is on 35 mm positive stock; Axelbank had the earlier reels
converted from nitrate to acetate-base (safety) stock.
To facilitate description of the contents of the film, each reel is divided into segments, and the segments into feet.
The type of film is described according to the following alphabetic code.
- Actuality: incorporating two classes of "real life" film
- "Live" film of an event either totally unplanned or at least planned primarily for purposes other than film-making
- Factual material - demonstrations of equipment, interviews, speeches, comment - specially filmed for inclusion in instructional films, news reports, etc.
- Dramatisation: film retaining an essentially documentary approach to its subject without meeting either of the "Actuality" definitions
- Fiction
- Illustrative material: maps, graphs, diagrams, reproductions of photographs and illustrations from books
(Adapted from Imperial War Museum. Department of Information Retrieval.
Film Cataloguing Handbook, by Roger B. N. Smither with David J. Penn. London, 1976)
The film is black and white unless the word "color" appears at the bottom of the segment description in the
Guide.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Video tapes
Motion pictures
World War, 1939-1945 -- Soviet Union
World War, 1914-1918 -- Russia
Soviet Union -- Pictorial works
World War, 1939-1945 -- Pictorial works
World War, 1914-1918 -- Pictorial works
Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Pictorial works
Soviet Union -- History -- Pictorial works
Axelbank, Herman, 1900-1979