{"product_id":"iconography-of-power-soviet-political-posters-under-lenin-and-stalin-volume-27-studies-on-the-history-of-society-and-culture-9780520087125","title":"Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Volume 27) (Studies on the History of Society and Culture)","description":"\u003cp\u003eMasters at visual propaganda  the Bolsheviks produced thousands of vivid and compelling posters after they seized power in October 1917. Intended for a semi-literate population that was accustomed to the rich visual legacy of the Russian autocracy and the Orthodox Church  political posters came to occupy a central place in the regimes effort to imprint itself on the hearts and minds of the people and to remold them into the new Soviet women and men.  In this first sociological study of Soviet political posters  Victoria Bonnell analyzes the shifts that took place in the images  messages  styles  and functions of political art from 1917 to 1953. Everyone who lived in Russia after the October revolution had some familiarity with stock images of the male worker  the great communist leaders  the collective farm woman  the capitalist  and others. These were the new icons standardized images that depicted Bolshevik heroes and their adversaries in accordance with a fixed pattern. Like other \"invented traditions\" of the modern age  iconographic images in propaganda art were relentlessly repeated  bringing together Bolshevik ideology and traditional mythologies of pre-Revolutionary Russia.  Symbols and emblems featured in Soviet posters of the Civil War and the 1920s gave visual meaning to the Bolshevik worldview dominated by the concept of class. Beginning in the 1930s  visual propaganda became more prescriptive  providing models for the appearance  demeanor  and conduct of the new social types  both positive and negative. Political art also conveyed important messages about the sacred center of the regime which evolved during the 1930s from the celebration of the heroic proletariat to the deification of Stalin.  Treating propaganda images as part of a particular visual language  Bonnell shows how people \"read\" themrelying on their habits of seeing and interpreting folk  religious  commercial  and political art (both before and after 1917) as well as the fine art traditions of Russia and the West. Drawing on monumental sculpture and holiday displays as well as posters  the study traces the way Soviet propaganda art shaped the mentality of the Russian people (the legacy is present even today) and was itself shaped by popular attitudes and assumptions.  Iconography of Power includes posters dating from the final decades of the old regime to the death of Stalin  located by the author in Russian  American  and English libraries and archives. One hundred exceptionally striking posters are reproduced in the book  many of them never before published. Bonnell places these posters in a historical context and provides a provocative account of the evolution of the visual discourse on power in Soviet Russia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647973482549,"sku":"ByrdShop_0520087127","price":248.44,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780520087125.jpg?v=1781700252","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/iconography-of-power-soviet-political-posters-under-lenin-and-stalin-volume-27-studies-on-the-history-of-society-and-culture-9780520087125","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}