World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGeorgi Anatolevich Zelma was born in Tashkent, Russian Turkestan, Russian Empire (now Uzbekistan) in 1906. His family moved to Moscow, Russia in 1921. He became a professional photographer at the Soviet studio Proletkino, and then worked for the Russfoto agency. Between 1924 and 1927, he traveled various locales of Islamic Central Asia, including his home country which was now governed by the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, to document on how the Soviet system changed the peoples of Central Asia. In 1927, he enlisted in the Red Army in Moscow. In 1929, he briefly lived in Tashkent. Through the 1930s, as an employee of the Souizfoto agency, he traveled the European portion of the Soviet Union and photographed collective farms, industrial projects, and military exercises. After the start of the war, he was a war correspondent for Isvestia in southeastern Europe, notably working in the city of Stalingrad during the namesake battle. After WW2, he worked for the magazine Ogone. In 1962, he joined the press agency Novosti. He passed away in 1984.

Photographs Taken by Georgi Zelma