The Look of Socialism: Nagliadnaia Agitatsia across the Post-War USSR and Beyond

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

One of the most frequent impressions foreign visitors to the USSR articulated upon their return was of the prominence of visual propaganda in the Soviet Union. But while the political push for a consistent and prominent visual messaging may have originated from Moscow, this call was implemented differently in different locations across the USSR. This panel explores the aesthetics and pragmatics of Soviet-style instructional visuality (nagliadnaia agitatsia), as it was negotiated and deployed across Soviet space in the second half of the 20th century. Who were the actors that determined the criteria for proper visual pedagogy, and what did nagliadnost’ mean to these different actors? What were the criteria and guiding principles of instructional visuality, and how were they interpreted and implemented in different national and regional contexts, and across a range of domaines, from monumental propaganda to graphic art?

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Olga Shevchenko, Williams College

Papers

• Communism as Reality: The Soviet Union's Agitation Propaganda Reforms - Tatiana Voronina, Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research

• A Monumental Task: Inscribing Nizami into the Built Landscape of Azerbaijan’s Capital City - Isabelle Kaplan, Howard U

• Imagined Community of Blood: Images of Blood Donation Campaigns in Soviet Lithuania - Natalija Arlauskaite, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

Discussant

• Angelina Lucento, Duke U