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356 Eda Kalmre Anyone leafing through a similar family album or photo collection could mentally compose a unigue pictorial narrative by arranging photos of objects taken at different times. In general, photographs of Tartu have played an important role in preserving local memories. The lively and detailed description of the town provided by my informants relied in part on their personal photo collections. After a few decades of Soviet rule, photographs of pre- and post-war Tartu, particularly those taken by photographer Eduard Selleke (1895-1976), and similar ones taken later by Ilja Pähn (1915-2006), Karl Hintzer (1895-1967), and Elmar Kald (1898-1969), etc. became a special point of interest among many local residents who were interested in collecting such material. During the Soviet period, these photos were exchanged among collectors at the Tartu Philately Club and elsewhere. During the course of my research I came to know the phenomenal extent of photographer Eduard Selleke’s work in taking documentary photos and distributing them during the Soviet period. Selleke was a professional photographer. During Estonia’s first independence in the early twentieth century he had been a scientific photographer at Tartu University and fulfilled multifaceted photography-related requests. He worked on reproductions of old photos, documentary photography, pictures of WWI and the Estonian Liberation War (Fig. 153). However, he became nationally renowned for his photos of the city of Tartu, both pre- and post-war. During Soviet period he continued working as a photographer focusing mainly on portraits, studio, and document photos. Although he was under constant KGB surveillance, and also had to perform some jobs to their specifications, working in an artistic team (artell) allowed some independence and even business opportunities during the Soviet period. Practically until his death he and his wife visited companies in Tartu, offering his photos for sale. One could also order photos from him directly. In fact, he had acquired the works of many photographers who had fled to the west during the war (including Karl Hintzer), which he also sold (under his own name). Consequently, Selleke is today credited for pictures that he did not take. In the museums and archives of Tartu the ratio of originals and copies of these photos is still unresolved. As a side remark, one of my informants, Kalju Leib, the owner of a large private photo collection focusing on the history of housing in Tartu, had had personal contacts with Eduard Selleke, and reminisced that Selleke was a good story teller, often accompanying the transaction, ice. selling of a historical photograph, with a story concerning the pictured object. This provided prompt conjoining of memories to visual pictures. Another interesting although more marginal means of bringing post-war forbidden photos of Tartu to public circulation—to homes, in front of the viewers— was if the photo followed an artistic and heroic format of depiction (for example if the image represented restoration). Graphic artist Richard Kaljo, for example, drew a series of graphic works of Tartu in war ruins in the 1950s. Several of the graphic
