The First World War with the eyes of photographer István Kováts, the Elder

During the First World War, the 82nd Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment was stationed in Odorheiu Secuiesc, in which young men from Odorhei and Ciuc County served. A soldier of the 82nd Infantry Regiment was István Kováts, the Elder, photographer from Odorheiu Secuiesc, founder of Kováts Photography. In the first year of the war he was drafted and appointed as the infantry regiment's photographer.

The young photographer from Odorheiu Secuiesc toured the front lines of Galicia, Romania and northern Italy, and the settlements of the war zone with the 82nd Infantry Regiment. He captured in his pictures all forms of life as a soldier. He depicts trenches, troop marches, orderlies, ranks, sentries, games, rest, meals, mass, death and funerals. As in the war photography of the time, new themes emerge: ruins, the wreckage of machines, the horror of death, the everydayness of burial. He also photographed the new technical inventions of modern warfare: aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles. As a special feature, some of the stereoscopic photographs taken in three dimensions at the dawn of photography were shown.

The 50 photographs in the exhibition are selected from Kováts Photography's own collection. The family photographic workshop was established in 1876 in Odorheiu Secuiesc, where the knowledge of the photographers was handed down from father to son for four generations. This is how Kováts Photography became Europe's only daylight studio still in operation today.

Organizers:

The Szekler Museum of Ciuc, Kováts István Photo Archives Associaton, Kováts Photography