Images and Photos

AKON is the postcard portal of the Austrian National Library. Over 75,000 digitised postcards with topographical image motifs can be found via the names of the places depicted or via a digital world map. The portal contains postcards from all parts of the world from the beginnings of the illustrated postcard at the end of the 19th century to the early 1940s. A large part of the collection comes from Eastern and Eoutheastern Europe. As an early form of mass communication, these illustrated postcards are an important source for the study of everyday culture.

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AKON - Ansichtskarten Online

The portal ArtArchiv.bg offers free access to digitised paintings and graphics. The focus of the collection is art from the late 19th and 20th century with a special emphasis on Bulgarian modernism.

ArtArchiv.bg

The Photo Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB) houses around 2.2 million photographs and illustrations preserved in their original graphic techniques. Despite its focus on Bavaria, the collection also comprises a number of remarkable holdings with a reference to Eastern Europe – among them the photographic archive of Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957), known as "Hitler's photographer", who as a member of a propaganda company during World War II also documented the war on the Eastern Front for a time. Also included is the photographic estate of Baron Peter von Wrangel (Baron Pëtr Nikolaevič Vrangel), General of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. All digitised images can be purchased in high, reproducible resolution upon request; publication of the images requires permission and is usually subject to a fee.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

Photo Archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

The analogue photo archive of the German illustrated magazine stern has been owned by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek since 2019. It comprises 15 million photographs from the period 1948 to 2001. Among them are numerous photographs or photo reportages with reference to Eastern Europe. The already digitized and catalogued material can be researched and requested for use in a dedicated image portal for the stern Photo Archive.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

stern Photo Archive 

The Image Index is a freely accessible image database containing around 2.2 million photographs of 1.7 million works of art and buildings in Germany and Europe. Russia, East and Southeast Europe are also well covered, especially Bohemia, Greece and Poland.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

Image Index

In the Deutsche Fotothek you will find many photos of Russia, East and Southeast Europe via an easy search option. For Budapest, Moscow or Prague alone, several thousand photos are available.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

Deutsche Fotothek

The central portal for online collections of Czech cultural heritage from memory institutions also contains over 100,000 photographs.

eSbirky.cz

Europe's largest online collection of art, culture and science contains a large number of photographs from and about Russia, East and Southeast Europe. These can be easily searched and explored using keywords.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

Europeana Photography

The database "FotoArchiv.bg" contains more than 45.000 historical photographies, that were taken in Bulgaria in the 20th century. The images can be browsed by location, date, topic or event.

FotoArchiv.bg

The Graphikportal is an international network database in which graphic collections, picture archives, photo libraries and libraries publish their holdings of drawings and prints or their photographic reproductions together on the Internet. A large collection of digitised material is available, particularly on Eastern Central Europe.

Graphikportal

In the online database of its image archive, the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe in Marburg lists the digitised image materials from the Institute’s collections as well as additional image sources from joint digitisation projects with cooperation partners. These include some 6,300 vertical aerial photographs of Eastern Central Europe taken by the German Air Force in 73 image flights between 1942 and 1945.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS) - Vertical aerial photos of Eastern Central Europe

Herder Institute: Image Catalog

The database "The History of Russia in Pictures" (original: История России в фотографиях), which is still in beta version, is an open and freely accessible Russian-language photo archive with over 100,000 photographs from the period 1840 to 1999.

Details in the Database Information System (DBIS)

Istoriya Rossii v Fotografiyach

The largest library in the world offers access to a large collection of images and photographs of Russia in its digital collection.

Library of Congress | Digital Collections Russia

The New York Public Library has a number of digitised image and photography collections related to Russia, East and Southeast Europe. The two most extensive of these are the following collections:

• Icons and Images of Cultures: Plate Books from the Russian Empire, Early Soviet Russia, and Eastern Europe, 1730-1935
• Russia and Eastern Europe in Rare Photographs, 1860-1945

New York Public Library | Icons and Images of Cultures: Plate Books from the Russian Empire, Early Soviet Russia, and Eastern Europe, 1730-1935

New York Public Library | Russia and Eastern Europe in Rare Photographs, 1860-1945

The project "PastVu: Retro View of Mankind's Habitat" collects, indexes and geo-locates historical photographs by a team of volunteers. The focus is on photographs from Russia; smaller collections exist on other European countries.

PastVu

The portal "I write to you" offers more than 20,000 postcards from the Soviet Union and other countries in more than 30 languages. The oldest postcard dates from 1881, the most recent from 2022. All digital copies are freely accessible and provided with metadata.

Pišu tebe

Various libraries and institutions worldwide offer collections of digitised Russian and Soviet posters, such as Duke University and the Hoover Institution.

Soviet Posters in the Digital Collections of the Hoover Institution

Russian Posters in the Digital Collections of the Duke University Library

Russianposter.ru, digital poster archive of the Lotman Institute at the University of Bochum

Posters of the Russian Civil War in the New York Public Library

Soviet poster collection at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam

Windows on War. Collection of Soviet posters from the University of Nottingham

The Visual Archive Southeastern Europe is a freely accessible database containing more than 3.500 images, which originated in Southeastern Europe in various epochs. The collections focus on gender and family, cinema and everyday-life.

Visual Archive Southeastern Europe