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When does a war begin and when does it really end? Every war leaves traces, scars in the landscape and people’s resulting traumas are passed from one generation to the next. Post-war times can also become the years before a war.

Over ten years, Swiss photographer Meinrad Schade has recorded the precarious life oscillating between war and peace in parts of Russia, Chechnya and Ingushetia, in Kazakhstan, the Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region, and in Ukraine. His portraits, still lifes, interiors, street scenes, and landscapes introduce the viewer to remote places and preliminary events. Schade’s images show the long-term effects of old conflicts on people.

This new book features a selection of some 160 images from Schade’s “War Without War” project. The essays tell the history of the countries and their conflicts, look at the decline and struggle for resurrection of the Soviet empire, and reflect on chances and limits of documentary photography.

War without War won a silver medal in the 2016 German Photo Book Award.

Designed by Hi-Visuelle Gestaltung.
Edited by Nadine Olonetzky. With texts by Nadine Olonetzky, Fred Ritchin, Mikhail Shishkin, and Daniel Wechlin