Every picture tells a story
continued

The images cover everything from the Doukhobor immigration to life on the prairies to the death of Peter (Lordly) Verigin. Many show unique views of Doukhobor industry, such as the inside of brick factories and flour mills. A few are signed by studios like Gushul of Bellevue, Alta., and Campbell of Nelson, but the majority don't have dates or descriptions.

Ewashen, however, noticed some of the plates had Russian writing on the edges that said "Korcini." He eventually established that Alexandra Korcini was A Russian pacifist and photographer who knew Leo Tolstoy.

"Sure enough, we found three images of them together in the Tolstoy museum in Moscow," he says. "She had come back from India and wanted to show him her pictures."

On March 2, 1909, Korcini put on a lantern slide show for Tolstoy's family, friends, pupils, and servants. They were all impressed.

Ewashen suspects "it's possible they were discussing pacifism and Tolstoy mentioned the Doukhobors. This prompted her, probably, to come to Canada. She had A sponsor, a wealthy friend who encouraged her to travel and take pictures, so it was easy for her to do that."

Korcini appears in many of her own shots, which solves another mystery: until this point, Ewashen puzzled over the nonDoukhobor woman who kept showing up in various scenes.

Now that the significance and provenance of the glass slides had been established, there was still the problem of their poor condition: many had cracks or blotches.