Conflict

Thomas Dworzak’s Kavkaz

During the early 90s, German photographer Thomas Dworzak explored the Caucasus region examining the impact of years of brutal war

Thomas Dworzak

Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Graduation ceremony in the Novotsherkassk Cossack cadet corps. Novotsherkassk, Russia. 1997. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Woman on bus. Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. July 4, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Pro-Djokhar Dudaijev (the late President) demonstration in the main square with poster commemorating a World War II massacre on Chechens by the Soviet army in the village of Haibakh. Grozny, Chechn (...)
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Civilians trying to get into the encircled city through a forest after Chechen rebells take Grozny back from the Russian Army. Chechnya, Russia. September 8, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Members of the newly installed Islamic 'Sharia' court punish a drunkard with 40 lashes of a whip. They stop when he asks for mercy after about 20. Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. September, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Celebrations during the anniversary of the victory in the Abkhaz-Georgian war. Georgia. September, 1995. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Burial of a peasant killed by a mine who had fled his village during the war. He was harvesting in a minefield in an effort to feed his family. Abkhazia, Georgia. October, 1995. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz An elderly Russian woman in mass grave of several hundred, mostly Russian, civilians killed during the Russian storm of Grozny. Chechnya, Russia. 1995. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Chechen civilians fleeing the bombing of Grozny find themselves under attack from Russian mortar fire. Chechnya, Russia. August, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz The sacrifice of a sheep as Lezgin pilgrims climb the Shalbus-Dagh mountain, following the legend that the Prophet Mohammed ascended to paradise from there. Republic of Daghestan, Russia. September (...)
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Armenian priests at a commemoration of the Armenian genocide of 1915. Erevan, Armenia. April, 1994. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz Sufi 'Sikr' ritual during a pro-Djokhar Dudaijev demonstration. Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. September, 1994. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz An orphaned Chechen street kid hanging out by a Russian post. Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. June, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz A beach with damaged buildings from the Georgian-Abkhaz war which took place between 1991 and 1993. Georgia. July, 1995. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz A woman wearing a gas mask because of the smell from the reburial of around 120 Abkhaz soldiers who had been killed 6 months earlier in a Georgian ambush. After the takeover of Abkhazia by the Abkh (...)
Thomas Dworzak | Kavkaz The shrapnel splattered wall of the exhibition hall. Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. July, 1996. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos

“This is a toast to the Caucasus, and through the Caucasus to Georgia. This place, at a very young age, has taught me about life – in the horrors of war – in the beauty of peace. A toast to all its people, regardless of their nationality and traditions. May God give them peace. I would like to thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for having allowed me to be part of your lives, culture and reality. Thank you for having taken me for what I am and as one of yours, allowed me to live alongside with you, in passion and obsession. Thank you for the everlasting friendship. Thank God that I had the luck to find you and your land. Meeting you was the most beautiful thing that could have happened in my life. Forever I will be proud to be a Prisoner of the Caucasus. For You!”

Irreversibly a ‘Prisoner of the Caucasus’, Thomas Dworzak assembles his nostalgic black and white photographs and quotes from Russian 19th-century romantic literature. The book, Kavkaz (Causcasus), is bilingual English/Russian and also contains Azeri and Georgian captions.

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