Book tip: The History War
Book tip: The History War
Larry Towell
August 20, 2024
![Woman-praying-on-shields-of-National-Riot-Police-LFI](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9263820/Woman-praying-on-shields-of-National-Riot-Police-LFI.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Woman praying on shields of National Riot Police. Maidan Square, Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine. 2014
Towell was in Ukraine for the first time in 2014 during the Maidan uprising, and was a witness to the last days of violent clashes between protestors and the police in Kiev. As a result of this experience, the photographer decided to dedicate himself long-term to the history and upheavals in the country, returning there time and again over the years. So, the second chapter in the book deals with the devastated area around Chernobyl, and the starting point of the nuclear disaster in April 1986. In 2017, Towell was close to the restricted zone. He stepped illegally over the line, and was caught by the police. Luckily for him, being a Canadian, the security guards considered it too much effort to arrest him. Many villages around there are now being repopulated by refugees from the war zones, as the health risks seems to be considered less serious than the dangers of war. The rest of the chapters deal with Towell's time in the east, in Donbass in 2018, a Ukrainian Army deployment in Bachmut, the time he spent with separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, and, finally, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its gruesome consequences, including harsh images of the exhumation of civilian graves and crimes against humanity in Bucha.
The author refers to The History War quite simply as a “book about Ukraine by a person”, a subjective history book that honours the Ukrainians' centuries-long struggle for freedom. Because of its design, the book goes beyond the usual forms of publication, and, as a result, also questions the possibilities of the photo book format. In order to include the historical component, Towell's uses masses of illustrative material that he found. A jumble of discarded ephemera: historical family photos, advertising motifs, playing cards, hotel cards and postcards, crushed cigarette packets, things left behind by Russian soldiers. The collages are multi-layered: there are reproductions of old scrapbooks filled with new war pictures. And the images of monuments destroyed by bullets also tell of past glories and the passage of time. The result is an extremely unique and powerful work, where the photographer's reports and mementoes almost seem to burst out of the cover, and for sure go way beyond classic photo-journalistic war reporting.
The History War+-
![cover](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261604/cover.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Photographs, layout and text: Larry Towell
372 pages, black and white and colour pictures + ephemera
19.9 × 25.0 cm, English
First edition – September 2024
Gost
Larry Towell+-
The son of a car mechanic, Towell was born in 1953 into a large family in rural Ontario, Canada, where he grew up. He studied Visual Arts at York University in Toronto. After a spell volunteering in Calcutta in 1976, he began to take photographs and write. After returning to Canada, he taught folk music to feed himself and his family. At the same time, he documented the Contra war in Nicaragua, and reported on the relatives of disappeared people in Guatemala. In 1984 he became a freelance photographer and author, concentrating on social and societal themes. He has been a member of the Magnum Agency since 1988. In 1996 he was the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award for his series about the Mennonites. More
![Woman-praying-on-shields-of-National-Riot-Police-LFI](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9263820/Woman-praying-on-shields-of-National-Riot-Police-LFI.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Woman praying on shields of National Riot Police. Maidan Square, Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine. 2014
![Family photo album in abandoned house. Rahivka Village, Chernobyl Region](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261454/Family-photo-album-in-abandoned-house-Rahivka-Village-Chernobyl-Region.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Family photo album in abandoned house. Rahivka Village, Chernobyl Region. 2017
![Embed with Ukrainian Army. Komyshuvakha (Luhansk area).](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261453/Embed-with-Ukrainian-Army-Komyshuvakha-Luhansk-area-.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Embed with Ukrainian Army. Komyshuvakha (Luhansk area). Kultchitsky Batallion. Ukrainian Army. Frontline. 2016
![Barricade on Hrushvesky Street](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261458/Barricade-on-Hrushvesky-Street.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Barricade on Hrushvesky Street. Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine. 2014
![web LT_Magnum_archive__18 copy](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261461/web-LT_Magnum_archive__18-copy.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Map of Maidan Square identifying barricades and medical tents. Maidan Square, Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2014
![Girl at barricade on Hrushvesky Street](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261456/Girl-at-barricade-on-Hrushvesky-Street.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Girl at barricade on Hrushvesky Street. Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine. 2014
![web LT_Magnum_archive_288](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261457/web-LT_Magnum_archive_288.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Refugees boarding busses for the Polish border, Lviv, Ukraine, March 2022
![web LT_Magnum_archive_348](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261455/web-LT_Magnum_archive_348.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Mass grave, Bucha, Ukraine, 2022
![Commemorating those killed during the Maidan uprising.](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261459/Commemorating-those-killed-during-the-Maidan-uprising-.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Commemorating those killed during the Maidan uprising. Kyiv, Ukraine 2024
![Protester, Maidan Square, Maidan uprising, Kyiv,](https://lfi-online.de/webfile/img/9261462/Protester-Maidan-Square-Maidan-uprising-Kyiv-.jpg?x=800&y=800)
Protester, Maidan Square, Maidan uprising, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2014