The Sweet Life [of Nomenklatura]

For a good 25 years Antanas Sutkus photographed the Communist Party of Lithuania, modeled on Moscow ideology and in power from the Second World War until Lithuania’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. The party was (particularly for the West) a mystery in plain sight: strictly centralized and secretive, and an expert controller of information about itself. As a certified party photographer Sutkus documented official events and parades, while as a journalist he was commissioned by party members to portray them individually—thus entering the enclosure of power on different levels. Beyond his authorized work Sutkus importantly made images that he could not publish at the time: those not optimistic enough, not in line with party ideals or censorship norms. These he hid away in drawers for decades; many are published in this book for the first time. PRAVDA (truth) combines revealing contradictory images of the inner life of communism with the glitz with which the party celebrated itself. The final section of the book shifts focus from opulence to the everyday: Sutkus captures in black and white—and exceptionally for him in color—the people’s struggles for small moments of happiness under a seemingly inescapable regime.