Soviet Russia was not such a bad place. At any rate, not always such a bad place. My notions of the USSR in the first half of the 20th century come from reading Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and the indispensable Anna Akhmatova, authors whose writings are incised in pain. “Unforeseen: The Personal in Photography from Soviet Russia 1926–1949” at the Nailya Alexander Gallery presents 33 images “outside a propaganda context,” pictures taken of families and pictures that exemplify the photographers’ own artistic sensibilities. In short, not the Russia Osip Mandelstam had in mind when he wrote in 1933, “We live without the land beneath feeling us … “

The most recognizable name among the 13 photographers is that of Aleksander Rodchenko (1891–1956). His “Girl with Leica” (1934) is a good example of the avant-garde work for which he is famous. A woman in a smart suit sits on a bench with her camera in her lap; the bench is on a sharply raked angle and the light is coming through a grate that casts a grid-like shadow over her and everything else. This is representative of the “formalist” pictures for which Rodchenko was later censured by the Party and deprived of his livelihood, and it is still an interesting photograph. “Daughter with Dog” (1928), also by Rodchenko, is a pedestrian family snapshot. Not totally banal, it is shot tighter and at a lower angle than most fathers would think to use, and he caught the dog standing up. Still, it is the sort of image that has far more significance to the parents of the child than it could possibly have as an object of aesthetic consideration, and for that reason it is an important element of “Unforeseen.” The ordinariness of a girl in the country — maybe on vacation — teaching her dog to do tricks tells us something vital about life a decade after the Revolution.

Moisey Nappelbaum (1869–1958) was a well-known Soviet portraitist who shot everyone: Lenin, Gorky, Tatlin. He is represented by two pictures, “Ida” and “Two Sisters” (both 1921): Ida is probably one of the sisters, and both are probably Nappelbaum’s children. “Ida” shows a well gotup young woman, a bit plump and without a wedding band, looking dolefully at the camera, but the two girls nestling together are companionable and giggly. “Two Sisters” does not look like commissioned work, but a personal keepsake to be pasted in a family album.

“On a Stroll” (1930s) by Olga Ignatovich (1905–1984) also has that quality. Two appealing young women in attractive city clothes are engaged with their two little girls, also nicely dressed. They are in a public space, maybe a park, and the women look at the children rather than at the camera, and the children look at each other. It could be a scene at the Luxembourg Gardens. And who is the pretty “Young Woman in the Sun” (1930s)? Mikhail Prechner (1911–1941) caught her coming up the steep stone steps from a rocky beach, the wind opening her robe, and the sun sparkling on the water behind her. A girlfriend? Wife? Someone he just met or wants to meet?

Alexander Zhitomirsky (1907–1993), a brilliant collagist, was awarded a medal for the effective propaganda he created during the World War II. When he married in 1931 he was unable to travel, so he made a honeymoon album by creating photomontages of himself and his wife at places they would have liked to have gone. “Untitled (Bride in NYC)” (1931) puts a cheery picture of her in front of a window looking down on a Gotham skyscraper. The album is whimsical, sophisticated, and — in retrospect — sad.

A. Touskker’s “Summer in Teberda” (1930s) was taken from inside a simple but neat room. There is a desk with books and papers on it, and a plain metal frame bed. There is a glass pitcher filled with daisy-like flowers on the windowsill. Through the windows partially covered with plain white curtains, and through the open door, we see fields, trees, and the mountains for which Teberda is famous. Located in the Caucasus, Teberda has clean air and mineral baths, and has been the site of sanatoriums since the mid-’20s. Is the room a vacation cottage or part of a health resort?

There is a pleasant looking woman on the balcony outside the door standing with one arm on the railing and the other akimbo. She surveys the distant scenery. There is one shoe visible on the balcony, a man’s, and a man’s cap on a chair in the room; presumably they belong to the photographer. What is the history of the two of them in this room? When they returned to wherever it was they lived their real lives, and in later years came across this picture, what memories did it trigger? Was it a sanctuary in time, as the image implies?

The Nailya Alexander Gallery also has work up by three contemporary photographers: Igor Savchenko, Svetlana Boym, and Anna Frants. In very different ways, each deals with the meaning of personal memories, and the survival of individuals under the Communist regime.

The Cold War was a victory for America, a triumph of arms, diplomacy, and resolve, but was a greater victory for the human spirit that willed itself to be free. In the end, Pharaoh goes down, and Caesar goes down, and the Kaiser and the Czar and the Fuehrer and all the dreary Commissars go down, and when they’ve gone down what we’re left with is a box of fading photographs of vacations and children at play, and those photographs are what we treasure.

Until October 27 (24 W. 57th St., suite 503, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-315-2211).