PROKUDIN-GORSKII CHRONOLOGY

1860s Subjugation of the Caucasus

1863 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii is born in Murom, Vladimir Province, Russia (originally it was believed he was born in St. Petersburg)

1864-1869 Tolstoy writes War and Peace

1866 Dostoyevsky publishes Crime and Punishment

1867 Sale of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the United States

1868 Nikolay Aleksandrovich (Nicholas II) is born at Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg

1870 Vladimir Ilich Lenin is born in Simbirsk, Russia

1870s Conquest of Central Asia (Khiva, Bokhara, Turkestan)

1879 Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Josef Stalin) is born in Gori, Georgia (Russian Empire)

1881 Assassination of Alexander II

1881-1894 Reign of Alexander III

late 1880s Prokudin-Gorskii studies painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts; studies chemistry with D.I. Mendeleyev

1889 - 1891 Prokudin-Gorskii continues his studies for two more years in Berlin and Paris

1890 Prokudin-Gorskii marries Anna Aleksandrovna Lavrova

Apprentices in photochemical laboratories, becomes familiar with the work of Adolf Miethe and Edme Jules Maumene

1891 Construction begins on Trans-Siberian Railroad

early 1890s Prokudin-Gorskii returns to Russia

1894 Death of Alexander III

1894 -1917 Reign of Nicholas II

1897 Prokudin-Gorskii begins to present the technical results of his photographic research to the Fifth Department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS). (He would continue these presentations through 1918)

1897 First modern census in Russia

1898 Prokudin-Gorskii publishes the first in a series of works on the technical aspects of photography

1898 Prokudin-Gorskii presents his paper: "On Photographing Falling Stars (Star Showers)" to the IRTS

1900 Boxer Rebellion, Russian occupation of Manchuria

1900 Prokudin-Gorskii exhibits his black and white photography at the Paris Exposition, under the auspices of IRTS

1901 Trans-Manchurian line of the Chinese-Eastern Railway completed

1903 Prokudin-Gorskii publishes the booklet about photography with instant hand cameras

1903 Social Democrats (Marxist revolutionaries) of the Russian Empire split into two

competing wings: Menshevik and Bolshevik

1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War

1904 Prokudin-Gorskii compiles photographic material for a large illustrated volume of the Manchurian battlefield

1904 Trans-Siberian Railway [from Moscow to Vladivistok] completed through Manchuria

1906 Prokudin-Gorskii becomes editor of the Petersburg journal Fotograf-liubitel (Amateur Photographer) and serves in this post until 1909. He writes a series of technical articles in the principles of color reproduction

1906 Prokudin-Gorskii receives the gold medal at the International Exhibition in Antwerp and a medal for "Best Work" from the Photo Club in Nice for his color photography

ca. 1907 Prokudin-Gorskii envisions and formulates a plan for the photographic survey of the Russian Empire, using a new innovative system

1908 Prokudin-Gorskii conducts slide presentations of his color photography innovations for audiences at IRTS, the Petersburg Photographic Society, and elsewhere in St. Petersburg

May 1908 Prokudin-Gorskii photographs Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Poliana

1908 Prokudin-Gorskii conducts several presentations of his color slide projections; attracts the attention of The Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich, who facilitates an introduction to Tsar Nicholas II

early 1909 Nicholas II invites Prokudin-Gorskii to give a slide presentation to the Imperial court at Tsarskoye Selo. Prokudin-Gorskii receives official support to implement his plan to photographically document the Russian Empire

summer 1909 Prokudin-Gorskii completes photographic trips along the Mariinskii Canal system and industrial areas of the Ural mountains

March 1910 First formal viewing at court by the Tsar of Prokudin-Gorskii's photographs of Mariinskii Canal system and industrial areas of the Ural mountains

1910 Prokudin-Gorskii photographs the Volga Region

1910 Death of Tolstoy

January 1911 Prokudin-Gorskii delivers lecture at the Academy of Arts in Petersburg entitled "Monuments of Antiquity Along the Mariinskii Canal System and the Upper Volga, and a few words about the Significance of Color Photography"

1911 Prokudin-Gorskii photographs Turkestan and Afghanistan

1911-1912 Prokudin-Gorskii documents the areas involved in the Napoleonic campaigns in Russia to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of "The Fatherland War"

1912 Prokudin-Gorskii documents the Kamsko-Tobol'skii Water Route and the Oka River

1912 Official support for Prokudin-Gorskii's documentary project is terminated

1912 Prokudin-Gorskii founds the Biochrome Company, which markets services in both color photography and photographic printing (black and white and color)

1914 Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo

1914-1918 First World War

1915 Official support for Prokudin-Gorskii's documentary project is briefly resumed; Prokudin-Gorskii documents the Murmansk Railroad

1916 Trans-Siberian Railway completed

February 1917 February Revolution

March 1917 Abdication of Nicholas II

November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia

July 1918 Nicholas II and family assassinated in Yekaterinburg

Summer 1918 Prokudin-Gorskii leaves Russia for Norway, then England

1920-1922 Prokudin-Gorskii writes a series of articles for the British Journal of Photography and publishes a patent for a "camera for colour cinematography"

1922 Prokudin-Gorskii moves to France

1924 Vladimir Ilich Lenin dies in Gorki (near Moscow)

1924 Stalin succeeds Lenin and assumes title of Secretary General of the Communist party's Central Committee

1939-1945 Second World War

1940 Germany occupies France

August 1944 Liberation of Paris

September 1944 Prokudin-Gorskii dies in Paris