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stalin poster of the week

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This blog was first published on the properganderpress website https://properganderpressblog.wordpress.com/category/stalin-poster-of-the-week/

stalin poster of the week 114 (SPotW114)

13/1/2019

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Nina Vatolina, Nikolai Denisov, Vladislav Grigorevich Pravdin, & Zoia Rykhlova-Pravdina, Thank You Comrade Stalin for our Happy Childhood!, 1938.

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Nina Vatolina, Nikolai Denisov, Vladislav Grigorevich Pravdin, & Zoia Rykhlova-Pravdina (Ватолина, Н., Денисов, Н., Правдин, В. и Правдина, З.), Thank You Comrade Stalin for our Happy Childhood! (спасибо товарищу Сталину за счастливое детство!), 1938.

Although the 1938 poster ‘Thank you Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood!’, by Nina Vatolina, Nikolai Denisov, Vladislav Pravdin and Zoia Rykhlova-Pravdina features a similar colour scheme and several of the same objects as the Viktor Govorkov poster of 1936, significantly, the action in this poster takes place in front of a New Year tree.


The New Year Tree had been banned in the Soviet Union since 1916, and was only reinstated in 1935. Pavel Postyshev, second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, wrote a letter to the newspaper Pravda (meaning Truth) in 1935 calling for the installation of the New Year tree in schools, homes, children’s clubs and at Pioneers’ meetings.


Much fuss was made over the re-institution of the New Year tree by the newspaper  Izvestiia (meaning News). On 1 January 1937, Izvestiia reported:


‘On New Year’s Eve nearly A QUARTER OF A MILLION HOLIDAY TREES were lit up in the capital alone. The spruce tree has come to symbolise our country’s happy youth, sparkling with joy on the holiday … The clinking of glasses filled with champagne. At the stroke of midnight, hundreds of thousands of hands raised them in a toast to the health of their happy motherland, giving tribute in the first toast of the year to the man whose name will go down through the ages as the creator of the great charter of socialism.’*

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New Year tree decorations include red stars, parachutes and aircraft, all speaking to the promising futures awaiting these Soviet children

The tree in the 1938 poster is decorated with traditional candles and garlands, but also with small aircraft, parachutes and red stars.


The model aeroplane and ship are typical Soviet toys, inspiring boys to emulate Soviet heroes in aviation and exploration. Catriona Kelly notes that official New Year tree ceremonies, which in practice were open to a fairly limited elite group, ‘were in part a way of tutoring the offspring of the Soviet elite in new roles (hence the giving of telephones as gifts …)’**


By including these toys in the poster, oblique reference is also made to the great Soviet achievements in these fields. Stalin is not only providing a happy childhood, but also offers the children the potential for happy and fulfilling futures.


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Stalin is a paternal, benevolent figure looking protectively over Soviet children

In the 1938 poster, Stalin is surrounded by fair-haired Russian children who are situated on the same level in the picture plane as he although, by virtue of his status as adult male, he looks down on the children protectively.


The scene is relaxed and informal, with four of the children gazing up at Stalin with affection while a fifth child has his back turned to Stalin and gazes directly at the viewer.


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How joyous to be spending Christmas with Stalin whilst waving your red flag!

The poster implies that a Soviet childhood is a time of sacred innocence, unbounded joy, and material abundance. The flowers in the bottom right-hand corner are a further indication of material wealth, fertility, and the blossoming of the Soviet Union.


As the slogan suggests, all of this bounty is provided by the dominating paternal presence of Stalin, who is the equivalent of a kind of secular Father Christmas.


This was not the first time that Stalin had been depicted in this role. On 30 December 1936 Stalin appeared on the cover of the newspaper Trud (meaning Labour) as Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), making literal his role as mythical children’s benefactor.


*Translated in Thomas Lahusen, Véronique Garros, Natalia Korenevskaya, Intimacy and Terror: Soviet Diaries of the 1930s, p. 12.
**Catriona Kelly, Children’s World: Growing Up in Russia, 1890-1991, p. 112

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    Dr Anita Pisch

    Anita’s new, fully illustrated book, The personality cult of Stalin in Soviet posters, 1929 -1953, published by ANU Press, is available for free download here, and can also be purchased in hard copy from ANU Press.

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BLOG ARCHIVE - STALIN POSTER OF THE WEEK
SPotW1 Toidze 1947
SPotW2 Klutsis 1930
SPotW3 Chronicle 1938
SPotW4 Podobedov 1940
SPotW5
Deni 1930
SPotW6 Klutsis 1933
SPotW7 Efimov 1933
SPotW8 Govorkov 1936
SPotW9 Koretskii 1949
SPotW10
Foreign policy 1940
SPotW11 Pravdin 1950
SPotW12 Karpovskii 1948
SPotW13 Mizin 1934
SPotW14 Klutsis 1931
SPotW15
Koretskii 1943
SPotW16 I.V. Stalin 1930
SPotW17 Volkova/Pinus 1938
SPotW18 Toidze 1941
SPotW19 Stalin's affection 1949
SPotW20 Berezovskii 1947


SPotW21 50 Years 1929
SPotW22 Petrov 1948
SPotW23 Arakelov 1939
SPotW24 Ivanov 1952
SPotW25 Solomyanii 1952


SPotW26 Belopol'skii 1952
SPotW27 Kaidalov 1940
SPotW28 Mytnikov 1950
SPotW29 Yang 1938
SPotW30 Golub' 1950


SPotW31 Vorontsov 1951
SPotW32 Belopol'skii, 1951
SPotW33 Deni 1931
SPotW34 Madorskii 1938
SPotW35 Leader, teacher, friend 1941


SPotW36 Al'menov 1951
SPotW37 Deni 1937
SPotW38 Cheprakov 1941
SPotW39 Enemy, 1941
SPotW40 Zotov, 1934

SPotW41 Grinets 1937
SPotW42 Vatolina 1939
SPot
W43  Zhukov 1940
SPotW44 Fedotov 1943
SPotW45 Golub' 1949

SPotW46 Vatolina 1950
SPotW47 Solov'ev 1950
SPotW48 Mel'nikova 1951
SPotW49 Kokorekin 1951
SPotW50 Ivanov El'tsufen 1952

SPotW51 Unknown 1952
SPotW52 Klutsis 1932
SPotW53 Printing 1950
SPotW54 Lukhtein 1951
SPotW55 Toidze 1946

SPotW56 Litvinov 1949
SPotW57 Serov 1942
SPotW58 Pinchuk 1943
SPotW59 Petrov 1952
SPotW60 Podobedov 1939

SPotW61 Babitskii 1944
SPotW62 Pen Varlen 1942
SPotW63 Bayuskin 1942
SPotW64 Belopol'skii 1950
SPotW65 Belopol'skii 1952

SPotW 81 Koretskii 1950
SPotW 82 Pravdin 1950
SPotW83 Vatolina 1938
SPotW 84 Deni 1938
SPotW85 
Koretskii 1945


SPotW66 Dlugach 1933
SPotW67 Zhitomirskii 1942
SPotW68 Toidze 1949
SPotW69 Mikhailov 1937
SPotW70 Cheprakov 1939

SPotW 86 Kazantsev 1944
SPotW 87 Civil War 1938

SPotW 88 Kun 1937
SPotW 89 Spirit 1941
SPotW 90 Ryvkin 1939

SPotW71 Deni 1935
SPotW72 Deni 1935
SPotW73 Defence 1938
SPotW74 Elkin 1939
SPotW75 Zarnitskii

SPotW 91 Moor 1938
SPotW 92 Ivanov 1948
SPotW 93 Govorkov 1951
SPotW 94 Denisov 1941
SPotW 95 Ledby 1942

SPotW76 Toidze 1943
SPotW77 Futerfas 1936
SPotW78 Mukhin 1945
SPotW79 Golub' 1948
SPotW80 Karpovskii 1948

SPotW 96
SPotW 97
SPotW 98
SPotW 99
SPotW 100

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