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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 90 (SPotW90)

29/7/2018

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K. Ryvkin, The Soviets of Worker Deputies of the capital are leading the fight to fulfil the Stalinist Plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, 1939

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K. Ryvkin (К. Рывкин), The Soviets of Worker Deputies of the capital are leading the fight to fulfil the Stalinist Plan for the reconstruction of Moscow (Советы депутатов трудящихся столицы возглавят борьбу за выполнение Сталинского плана реконструкции Москвы), 1939

While the Metro, the Dnieper dam, and the Moscow-Volga Canal were very real and visible achievements of Soviet socialism, one of the more curious of the posters celebrating Soviet achievements is K. Ryvkin’s, ‘The Soviets of Worker Deputies of the Capital are leading the fight to fulfil the Stalinist Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow’, 1939.


The poster celebrates the reconstruction of Moscow under Stalin, an anticipated total overhaul of the design of the city to turn it into a socialist space, and unintentionally illustrates the socialist realist ideal of presenting reality as it should be, not as it is.


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The planned reconstruction of Moscow sees it as a bustling cosmopolitan city

One of the most ambitious of the Soviet projects was the Palace of the Soviets, the proposed seat of government and administrative centre near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.


According to Sona Stephan Hoisington, this site was chosen because of its political symbolism:


Christ the Savior was the personification of tsarist authority in Moscow. The location had been selected by Nicholas I who had laid the cornerstone in 1839; the consecration of the church on 26 May 1883 was the culmination of Alexander III’s coronation, with the new emperor and members of the imperial family personally participating in the elaborate ceremony…. The link between autocracy and architecture was made even more explicit in 1912 when an enormous statue to Alexander III was unveiled on the church plaza amidst great pomp and circumstance. [*]

The Palace of Soviets was planned as the tallest building in the world at the time (about 300m) and was to be further topped by a 100-metre-tall statue of Lenin, however it was ultimately not constructed.

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A distant Lenin

The model for the structure was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in March and April, 1934, with viewers invited to leave written comments, which were preserved in the Soviet archives.


There were many objections to the size of the proposed structure. Artist B. Cheryshev stated:


This is not an edifice but a theatrical pedestal for a monument to Lenin. The significance of the leader of the masses, ascending into the clouds far from the people, is utterly lost here. What is more, Lenin is depicted in the pose of a provincial actor. Unbelievably inflated and banal. Why does such excessive theatricality pervade the entire design? It lacks profundity; there is nothing serious or convincing about it…. Down with this theatricality, this operatic quality, this interpretation of Lenin as actor.[**]


Although the Palace of Soviets never progressed past the laying of its foundations, it was treated in propaganda such as posters, film, literature, pamphlets and medallions, as if it already existed.

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The ultimately unrealised Palace of the Soviets is sketched in lighter tones than its surrounds

In Ryvkin’s 1939 poster, it appears in lighter outline than its surrounds, suggesting, at least in this instance, that it was yet to be made manifest. However, in other posters, the Palace of Soviets takes pride of place in the centre of the poster as an established fact.


As Sheila Fitzpatrick points out, the image of this building was more familiar to both the Soviet public and foreigners, than that of most actual existing buildings.[***]


Ryvkin’s poster features an extensive landscape sketch of a bustling Moscow, with the Palace of Soviets jutting into a cloudless blue sky.


All forms of transport are available to the people – cars, trains, trams, ferries and aircraft, which fly beneath the towering statue of Lenin.


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A monolithic Stalin adopts a rhetorical pose indicating both dignity and humility

Although Lenin’s statue is planned at 100m high, in the poster it is dwarfed by that of Stalin who, while not placed centrally, is emphasised by the diagonal red of the space he occupies.


Less a man than an ancient stone idol, his monolithic statue, featuring the favoured hand-in pose, presides over the city, as its creator and protector.


[*] Sona Stephan Hoisington.  ‘”Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, Spring, 2003, pp. 41-68, p. 46.
[**] Sona Stephan Hoisington.  ‘”Ever Higher”: The Evolution of the Project for the Palace of Soviets’, Slavic Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, Spring, 2003, pp. 41-68, p. 62.
[***] Sheila Fitzpatrick. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. Soviet Russia in the 1930s.New York, 1999, p.70.

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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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