Evgeny Khaldey (1917-1997) was born in 1917 in Yuzovka (Donetsk).
At 13, he made his first photograph with a homemade camera. From the age of 16, he began working as a photojournalist.
Since 1939 he became a reporter for TASS Photochronicles. He shot Dneprostroy, reports about Alexei Stakhanov. He represented the editorial board of TASS on the naval front during the Great Patriotic War. All 1418 days of the war he went with the Leica camera from Murmansk to Berlin. Filmed the defeat of the Japanese in the Far East, participated in the liberation of Sevastopol, the assault on Novorossiysk, Kerch, the liberation of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary. A participant in the filming of the Potsdam Conference, the Paris Conference, the signing of the act of surrender of Germany and the Nuremberg trials, At the Nuremberg trials, some of the material evidence were photographs of Evgeny Khaldey.
His most famous photograph, Victory Banner over the Reichstag (1945), was taken on the roof of a dilapidated Nazi parliament. The picture is widely used to illustrate the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. This photograph is one of the most common shots of World War II.
In 1948, Evgeny Khaldey was fired from TASS on charges of insufficient education and political literacy. After Stalin’s death, he again began working in photojournalism. He got a job in the magazine «Club and amateur performances», filmed industry, sports and artists. Only in 1957, Khaldey was hired by the newspaper «Pravda», where he worked until 1972 then — in the «Soviet culture». He creates a photo chronicle of the post-war country, takes pictures of people and their life in all its diversity. «I always wanted to shoot in such a way that it would be interesting for people to watch today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow,» the photographer commented on his creative method.
In 1997, the book «Witness of History. Photos of Evgeny Khaldey» was published by American publishing house «Aperture». Also in May 1997, the premiere of the 60-minute film «Evgeny Khaldey- a photographer of the Stalin era» took place.
In 2004, Editions Du Chene — Hachette Livre (France) released Mark Grosse’s book, «Khaldey. Photographer of the Soviet Union» (Khaldey. Un Photoreporter en Union Sovietique).
In 1995, in Perpignan (France) at the International Festival of Photojournalism, Evgeny Khaldey was awarded the most honourable award in the world of art — the title «Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature».
