The grandson of landless peasants, all loyal subjects of the beloved Emperor František Josisko von Hapsburg (AKA Franz Joseph), photographer John Hudanish was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, exactly one hundred and fifty years to the day following the storming of the Bastille by the angry citizens of Paris, and within a few hours of the tragic demise in Prague of the renowned Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha.

John had manifested an early talent for graphic expression through the medium of Crayola applied to the ivory-colored plaster walls of the basement apartment in Perth Amboy where he resided with his family. But his mother, a very practical and very direct woman with no appreciation for primitive art, discouraged this form of artistic expression with such ardor, determination, and noise that the young artist turned his creative energies to language and literature.

Today, as John thinks back on his boyhood in New Jersey, he recalls the numerous family gatherings at which uncles and aunts would converse animatedly in a Slavic dialect they called "po-náshemu," i.e., our language. John didn't understand the language, and he clearly remembers the vexation he felt at his inability to participate in these lively conversations, even as a passive listener. He resolved to learn his ancestral tongue, but managed to pick up only a few words and phrases.

John's resolve didn't truly meet with opportunity until he enrolled as a freshman at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing. There he studied Russian, the only Slavic language on the curriculum, and closest to the mellifluous peasant patois of the Carpathian mountains where his ancestors had lived and toiled for generations before a handful of them crossed over the 'big pond" to find a better life in America. But his efforts did not satisfy his mother. She professed not to understand the hard Russian he was learning at MSU, and she pronounced him a "rusnak."

John persisted, minored in Russian at MSU, and when he joined the Army in 1963, he volunteered to study Russian six hours per day for eighteen months at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California. He emerged from the DLI with a good working knowledge of Russian, so the Army naturally sent him to SE Asia.

As a young soldier in the steamy jungles of Vietnam, John picked up a camera and pursued his earlier proclivity to graphic arts. After he arrived back in the states, two of his many photographs were placed on display in the Pentagon in 1968. John mustered out of the Army at Fort Myers, VA, in August 1969, having served more than six years on active duty. Eighty-five of the photographs he took in South Vietnam were exhibited at the Everhart Museum in Scranton in October 2009.

For the three and half decades after his discharge from the Army, which we shall call his "domestic period," John used his camera less to capture fleeting moments of beauty than to simply record family events. He took numerous decent photos of relatives and friends gathered together for picnics and parties, weddings and baptisms, but they were intended for photo albums, rather than gallery walls.

Then came the trip to Russia in 2005.

Northeastern Russia is a flat, marshy land with ancient cities, broad rivers, large lakes, endless forests of birch and pine, and relatively few roads. It presents the photographer with an infinity of opportunities. John left for Russia with a Canon Elf, but the Elf expired en route. A dour attendant at the photo concession in the Frankfurt airport pronounced it "kaput," so John replaced it on the spot with an Olympus, a reliable 35mm workhorse of a camera. With near-native fluency in Russian and a new Olympus in hand, John took about 480 pictures over the next four weeks.

Among the many compelling images John encountered in that vast land, Russia's numerous Orthodox churches captured his attention more than anything else. Although each church is unique, they all share some indefinable quality that immediately identifies them as Russian Orthodox. Individually and collectively, they are monuments in masonry or wood to the profound and enduring faith of a great people. Their silent witness today is all the more grand and poignant when one reflects on the great Soviet persecutions of the Church throughout much of the 20th Century. Literally millions of Russians perished for the very Faith which now is reaffirmed daily in the liturgical services celebrated beneath the soaring domes of Russia's many, many Orthodox churches.

John Hudanish 340-3888