The Last Nativity
The Last Nativity (Soravian: Останнє Різдво; Ostannye Pizdvo) is a 1983 photograph taken by Soravian and Le Monde photographer Isaak Sobachkin, depicting the final State Minister of the UPSR Aleksander Shelyapin at the front of a crowd of people attending a Nativity service by the Soravian Episemialist Church at Meredosia Cathedral in Samistopol on January 7, 1983.
The photograph's significance stems from the dissolution of the UPSR, which occured on January 8, 1983, the day after the photograph was taken, as scheduled by the Instrument for Future Cooperation that was signed several months prior. The people in attendance, Shelyapin included, can be seen with emblematically disshevelled expressions, contrasting the holiday season. Shelyapin went on to win the 1983 Foirbeis Peace Prize for his efforts in negotiating a civil end to the union.
Sobachkin's photograph was the headline picture for the January 8, 1983 edition of Le Monde, and went on to win the 1983 Nisset Prize for Photography. It is one of the most well-known pictures during the dissolution period of the late-1970s and early-1980s.