Draft:Posters in the Soviet Union
Posters were a common method of distributing propaganda in the Soviet Union from the country's inception. Artistic styles and approaches to subject matter shifted and evolved alongside political and social changes within the country. Subject matter varied widely, with some topics including the promotion of communism and socialism, agriculture, education, health, international relations, literacy, patriotism, war, and work ethics.[1]
Posters were used in part because they could motivate and communicate ideas to a population with large percentages of illiterate and semiliterate individuals.[2][3][4] They were often posted on the street, on and in vehicles,[4] and in communal buildings such as factories and schools.[5] Visual art in public spaces was also not a new concept, as Russia had a "strong visual traditon" already in the form of religious icons and lubok woodcuts.[4][6]
History
[edit]The earliest propaganda posters in the Soviet Union focused on the Russian Civil War, with this remaining the primary subject until 1921.[4] Between 1919 and 1921, the Russian Telegraph Agency produced ROSTA windows, posters which featured simplified cartoons and short pieces of text or mottoes.[7] A rising sun was a common symbol of posters of the era, representing a new beginning for the newly formed country.[7]
After this point, posters diversified to spotlight a variety of subjects and to promote government initiatives surrounding industrialization, health, and literacy, among other priorities.[4]
Posters were used to discourage alcohol consumption beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the late 1980s.[8][9]
Beginning in the 1930s, as Stalin aimed to modernize the country, posters invoking the future shifted metaphors; while previously, the future was something approaching the country, now the country was represented by a vehicle such as a car, boat, or train, moving itself towards the future. Similarly, time was often portrayed as a race.[2]
The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) was a "prolific" producer of posters during World War II. The form was used to encourage patriotism and material action such as paying for war bonds.[10] As one person from the Art Institute of Chicago put it, the posters "create a mood of urgency while visually aggrandizing the Soviet soldier, defining the Nazi enemy as vile and subhuman, and emphasizing the woeful suffering of the Soviet people".[11] These posters were also reproduced by the country's allies, including Great Britain, to reinforce the countries' alliances.[10][11]
With the advent of the Space Race in the 1950s, poster makers drew on space aesthetics and themes to promote government efforts.[1][12] Details such as the construction of rockets and space suits were often simplified, due to the secretive nature of the space programs.[12]
Aesthetics
[edit]
Early posters drew on avant-garde movements (including cubism and futurism),[13] but by the 1920s artists in Moscow and Leningrad had begun to adopt socialist realism.[13][14] Avant-garde styles continued to be used further afield, such as in the Central Asian cities of Baku and Tashkent.[14]
Art styles varied, with artists often being influenced by traditional art in the region. Posters created in Central Asia in the 1920s, for example, tended to have longer blocks of text and multiple figures, paralleling traditional calligraphy and miniature painting traditions.[14][15] These influences had somewhat dissipated by the 1930s, when shorter text and larger illustrations became standard.[14]
Posters used the language spoken in the region they were to be used in, and thus propaganda posters using the Arabic and Latin scripts exist, in addition to Cyrillic.[14][16] Arabic script in posters had begun to be phased out by the 1930s, as the Soviet government promoted Latin-based scripts for speakers of languages such as Azeri, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Tatar and Uzbek. The Latin-based scripts were subsequently replaced by Cyrillic scripts in the 1940s.[14]
By the 1960s, poster makers were beginning to be influenced by aesthetics and film posters from North America and Western Europe.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Epatko, Larisa (2017-07-11). "These Soviet propaganda posters once evoked heroism, pride and anxiety". PBS News. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ a b Porter, Tom (2024-01-31). "Imagining the Future: Approaching Soviet Propaganda from a New Angle". Bowdoin College. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ "Worker, mother, athlete: women in Soviet propaganda posters". New East Digital Archive.
- ^ a b c d e Starks, Tricia (2009-01-06). The Body Soviet: Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State. University of Wisconsin Pres. pp. 57–58. ISBN 978-0-299-22963-4.
- ^ "Unparalleled Soviet Poster Collection Donated to Hamilton". Hamilton College. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ Bergeron, Chris (2014-06-16). "Propaganda posters heat up Cold War at Museum of Russian Icons". Wicked Local. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
- ^ a b "Russian Revolution: Ten propaganda posters from 1917". 2017-11-05. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ "'Not A Drop!' Seven Decades Of Soviet Anti-Alcohol Posters". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 2020-01-01. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ "The Soviet Posters Meant to Keep Russians from Drinking". VICE. 2017-05-12. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ a b Cullimore, Hugh (2021-09-16). "Second World War posters from Russia". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ a b "Soviet War Posters Resurface in Chicago Museum". The Moscow Times. 2011-08-01. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
- ^ a b c "Posters of the golden age of Soviet cosmonauts". BBC News. 2015-09-19. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ a b Nelson, Fraser (2017-10-28). "How I fell under the spell of Soviet propaganda posters". The Spectator. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
- ^ a b c d e f Trilling, David (2013-09-22). "Central Asia: Propaganda Show Spotlights Soviet Push in Muslim Lands". Eurasianet.
- ^ Arbuthnot, Mollie (2023-06-27). "Soviet propaganda posters and Islamic art: Mobilizing artistic heritage in 1920s Uzbekistan". Russian Orientalism in a global context. Manchester University Press. pp. 229–252. ISBN 978-1-5261-6624-1. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
- ^ "Soviet Propaganda Aimed At Non-Russian Proletariat". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 2013-09-18. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
Further reading
[edit]- Lafont, Maria (2007). Soviet posters: the Sergo Grigorian collection. Munich; London: Prestel. ISBN 978-3-7913-3752-4. OCLC 82672530.
- Pisch, Anita (2016-12-16). The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929–1953. ANU Press. ISBN 9781760460631.
- Windows on the War: Soviet Tass Posters at Home and Abroad, 1941-1945. Art Institute of Chicago. 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-17023-8.
- Toland, Kristina (2021). Constructing Revolution: Soviet Propaganda Posters, 1917-1947. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-7354416-3-4.
- Bonnell, Victoria E. (1997). Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22153-6.