Soldatenleven tijdens de opleiding 1935 - 1940

Curator: This fascinating page comes from an anonymous photo album held in the Rijksmuseum, titled “Soldatenleven tijdens de opleiding,” or “Soldier's Life During Training," created sometime between 1935 and 1940. Editor: What immediately strikes me is the utter banality of it all. The stark contrast between the presumed subject matter, war, and these utterly quotidian images is chilling. Curator: Indeed, there's a disquieting ordinariness here. Each photograph documents moments—soldiers gathered for study, posing outside a building, or standing on a porch. It seems quite staged. Consider the print quality itself, probably a matte silver gelatin, likely developed on site given the context. What story does that element of immediacy suggest? Editor: It humanizes the subjects, complicates our understanding of them. We’re confronted not with dehumanized aggressors, but with young men, undoubtedly shaped by larger socio-political forces, and yet seemingly absorbed in ordinary routines and representations. Curator: Absolutely. Note the uniformity of dress—it serves both a functional purpose and contributes to the larger system of social control and hierarchy inherent in military structures. Also, that small cabinet interior photo could speak volumes on standardization of life in that environment. Editor: Yes, even the staging echoes the way institutional power imposes itself on the individual. The backdrop of buildings is reminiscent of early documentary photography. One can look to this page as the photographic enshrinement of daily fascism. Curator: It speaks volumes about the culture and the machinery that underpinned and normalised war and violence on a societal scale. And looking at the layout, you could also consider how these images—fixed permanently within the album’s leaves—serve as personal records and commemorations, but with whose narrative in control? Editor: Exactly. Whose story are we seeing, and who gets to tell it? The very materiality, the tactile presence of this photo album, binds together these individual lives into something larger, something that reverberates with questions of identity, obligation, and ultimately, complicity. Curator: It truly highlights the complexities inherent in exploring even seemingly mundane artifacts, as they act as windows onto much wider political and social landscapes. Editor: I agree, analyzing the ordinary reminds us of the constant negotiation of power, even where we least expect it.