Nostalgia

tema has an interesting post about the visual design of Soviet agitprop materials (which he calls monotonous, "communist shit") that includes the above photo of Moscow's Dom Knigi, which is still there on Novyi Arbat. Dom Knigi is not even my favorite Moscow bookstore, and today it doesn't look anything like it did in 1967, when the photo was taken, but it still made me want to pay the place a visit.

The Caucasus in 1927 - "New Political Boundaries"

Caucasus 1927, full-sized version available here.

The more things change...

Try to guess who wrote the following passage and when:

The traditional American Sovietologists harp on the difficulties and unpredictability of Russia's internal processes, which do not fit the usual Western criteria and stereotypes. Some analysts cannot accept the idea of a strong Russia, whether it be imperial or democratic. They propose that the West either take a wait-and-see approach or develop a new containment strategy.

Partnership opponents within Russia...reject cooperation with the West as inseparable from the democratizing of Russia, and view democratization itself as an obstacle to renewed authoritarianism and the forceful establishment of "order" within the territory of the former Soviet Union.

All the opponents of partnership - Russian and American - share the thesis that Russia is doomed to confrontation with the world around it and that East and West are fatally incompatible.

The author of these lines was Yeltsin's first Foriegn Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, writing in the May/June 1994 issue of Foreign Affairs. That article, titled "The Lagging Partnership," also had the following forward-looking statement, which might seem prophetic had it not been fairly self-evident at the time:

Russian foreign policy inevitably has to be of an independent and assertive nature. If Russian democrats fail to achieve it, they will be swept away by a wave of aggressive nationalism, which is now exploiting the need for national and state self-assertion.

Not that the Putvedev years have been years of unadulterated "aggressive nationalism," but the guys in power have certainly learned to ride that wave.

More maps of the Caucasus

A friend of mine who's based in Tbilisi has emailed me these four maps: three interesting German maps of the changing political geography of the Caucasus (sorry, I don't know the source or copyright holder), and a fourth one (also quite interesting in its own way) which goes more toward the present-day situation in a small part of the region.

Histrorical Georgia 1774-1878, full-size version available here.

Histrorical Georgia 1917-1936, full-size version available here.

Histrorical Georgia 1936 - 1959, full-size version available here.

South Ossetia Areas of Control (geor-SO), full-size version available here.
Areas controlled by South Ossetian de facto authorities in red, areas controlled by Georgia in blue.
Here's one good backgrounder on the conflict, and here's another fairly interesting brief.

More maps of the Caucasus, as well as my general disclaimer about how, while I think the old maps are fascinating, I'm also convinced they are a fairly unhelpful lens through which to view the resolution of current territorial conflicts, can be seen here.

Remembrance of phobias past

The used bookstores of Washington offer the Russophilic book-lover a smorgasbord of stale fare - shelves full of antiquated Kremlinology; earnest discussions of the Soviet political system often shown by later revelations to have been misguided or naive; optimistic accounts of Russian democratization and marketization from the early 1990s; and travelogue accounts of the USSR which are often interesting only as ephemera, based as so many of them are only on the limited areas of the country which foreigners were allowed to see.

And of course, Washington being Washington, one can always find government publications which have made their way to the land of used bookstores by virtue of their obsolescence or their previous owner's need to free up shelf space. Often these are not just US government publications but Soviet products - Progress Publishers and the Foreign Languages Publishing House tend to be well-represented - or coffee-table books depicting foreign lands which visitors to DC bestowed upon their hosts. Sometimes, amidst the detritus, one finds items which have been preserved long enough to become interesting historical documents. Recently I found one such item, Vol. II of a report by the House Un-American Activities Commission entitled Soviet Total War: 'Historic Mission' of Violence and Deceit.


To be honest, I can't decide whether this book is more interesting as a compendium of enduring Russophobic stereotypes or as a monument to some of the actual (if perhaps superficial) policy continuities between the Soviet and post-Soviet periods and their ability to continue to engender hysteria among foreign observers (though I don't think Russophobic hysteria in today's America is quite at the fever pitch alleged by some).

I scanned in a few pages, although I now regret not scanning in the table of contents - the titles of many articles in this little paperback read as though they could have been snatched from some of the more sensationalistic headlines of today's Russia coverage: intimidation of neighbors, the use of trade as a weapon, domestic repression - all were present 50 years ago in the US perception of Russia, and indeed in Russian reality, though one suspects to a rather greater degree than is the case today.

I was finally inspired to post the scans after attending a presentation by David Foglesong at the Kennan Institute yesterday. Foglesong's book, The American Mission and the “Evil Empire”: The Crusade for a “Free Russia” since 1881, was the subject of a couple of interesting posts on Sean's Russia Blog, and his presentation - accompanied by a fascinating slideshow of political cartoons which sadly is not available anywhere online - did not disappoint. One of the cartoons can be seen at this post on the blog of Foglesong's publisher, which also reproduces his May 2008 testimony before the US Helsinki Commission. Foglesong's testimony is well worth a read, as it is a series of measured recommendations about how to approach Russia with good intentions but without those missionary impulses which do more harm than good to the bilateral relationship.

Anyway, back to the relic which is the main subject of this post. This fold-out graphic was what really induced me to buy the book (though since it was only eight bucks, it didn't require too much persuasion):


Here is an example of one of the articles - "Red Supersalesmen Muscle in," about unfair Soviet trade practices - which reads like a precursor of some things one reads in today's news coverage of Russian foreign economic activity (if you click on the graphic, you should get a readable couple of pages):


One of the articles in the compilation had some interesting charts which suggested that the identities of the parties in today's US-Russian relationship (a military/economic superpower vs. an energy superpower) represent something of a reversal of the roles in the relationship 50 years ago - at least as they were perceived by HUAC.

Of the two, the US would seem to have occupied the "energy superpower" role:




Meanwhile, the USSR had substantially more men under arms than the US (although that is actually still the case, at least on the books, though not to such a large degree; and then as now the US enjoyed advantages in naval and air power, though again, not to the same degree as today):

"Огоньки" Победы (Victory Day in Magazine Covers - part 2)

This post is a the second in a two-part series chronicling Soviet media coverage of WWII victory anniversaries. The first part includes covers from two magazines, Soviet Life and Советский Союз. This post includes covers and inside pages from issues of Огонёк (a.k.a. Ogonyok, Ogoniok, Ogonek) magazine, which has been in print since 1899 and is still going strong.

They recycled the famous image of the Soviet flag over the Reichstag (Siberian Light recently had an interesting post about the history of that photo) every five years from 1965 to 1975, but strangely they turned the flag around in 1965 (see the first picture below). Aside from that, I found the emphasis on the liberation of Czechoslovakia to be a bit unusual, but perhaps someone with a more in-depth knowledge of Ogonyok's publishing agenda during the Brezhnev years can enlighten me. Many of the magazines of earlier years were filled with beautiful (and some not so beautiful) paintings and photos; the Ioganson painting which I scanned in from one of the 1965 issues was repeated a number of times, as one might expect.

1965

Glory to the Victorious People!
May 1965 Ogonyok

B. Ioganson, Victory Celebration
May 1965 (and several other years) Ogonyok

1970

No. 19 (May 1970)

No. 19 (back cover)

No. 20 (May 1970), inside front cover.
If you enlarge this inside spread, you'll see the interesting notice laid
inside many Soviet publications distributed in the US at the time:

I believe this notice was required by the terms of the agreement
reached about cultural exchanges in the second half of the 1950s.
The absence of such an agreement explains why I don't have any
magazine covers from 1955 in this collection.

1975

No. 18 (May 1975)
"May 9th marks 30 years since the liberation
of Czechoslovakia from the fascist invaders"

No mention of the Prague Spring, obviously...

No. 19 (May 1975)

No. 20 (May 1975)

No. 20 (back cover)

1980

No. 19 (May 1980)

No. 19 (back cover)

No. 20 (May 1980): "35 years since the liberation
of Czechoslovakia from the fascist invaders"

Just look at those happy children!

1990

No. 19 (May 1990)

The preceding issue (No. 18, May 1990) looks like
it was the first one to solicit for commercial ads in
the magazine (above is the back cover).

By 1995, ads have taken over the back cover for good...

And the 2000 V-day cover is available online.

PS - Sadly, the library doesn't have any covers from the 1985 40th
anniversary celebrations. I can assure you they were momentous -
one indicative, if odd, recollection I have is that the first Soviet sticker
(наклейка) I ever saw was with the orange 40 лет победы logo.

Victory Day in Magazine Covers - part 1

I've come to realize that trying to study for finals in a library with periodicals stacks and a scanner is a dangerous thing. A.U.'s library happens to be closer to my home than Georgetown's, though, so I've been spending a fair amount of time there in recent weeks.

As a diversion from the grind, I decided to scan covers from Soviet magazines celebrating the World War II victory. Of course, the selection available in a university library in the US was not exactly huge - Soviet Life, the USSR's propaganda mag for English-speakers; Советский Союз, which I believe was translated into a number of languages and served a similar function for "brotherly" socialist (i.e., the Warsaw Pact) countries; and Огонёк, the venerable weekly which is the only one of the three still publishing today.

The Огонёк covers will be posted shortly as a separate post; Blogger doesn't like such image-heavy posts, it seems. Clicking on the images should allow you to see a much larger version.

It may be a stretch, but I think something of an arc can be discerned in the covers below, from bombastic missile-waving; to recalling the American use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII as a way to energize the European peace movement; to fondly recalling the alliance with the U.S.

1965

"Twenty years ago, the Soviet flag fluttered over the Reichstag,
signaling the end of the most horrible world in history. In this
issue - the story of how the Soviet Army dealt the Wehrmacht
the deathblow on the Eastern front and saved mankind from
nazi enslavement."

"The Parade in Honor of Victory:
The Indestructible Shield of Liberty and Peace"

Yes, that's three covers in a row of the same
magazine devoted to victory.


1970

fold-out front cover...

...and the inside front cover.

1975

"The final battles of the Second World War in Europe.
The Worldwide Congress of Peace-Loving Forces. 1973."

1985

1990

In 1990, Soviet Life gave V-Day cooperation with the US inside play,
and the cover was sort of incongruous, though in line with the times:

And by 1995, of course, there was no more Soviet Life
or Советский Союз (the magazine or the country).

In Honor of Past Defenders of the Fatherland

Apparently, last month was the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Leningrad. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the siege, or the Blockade, as it is called in Russian, on the city. The signs advising citizens which side of the street to avoid when the city was being shelled remain in one or two places on Nevsky Prospekt as a reminder. Survivors, or perhaps today their descendants, still lay flowers beneath them.

Even in the 1980s, infrastructure problems and dolgostroi issues were being blamed on the wounds the city suffered during the Great Patriotic War, and of course the devastation of some of the tourist attractions surrounding St. Petersburg was still being restored in this century.

Anyway, I thought I'd post, somewhat belatedly for the anniversary noted above but right on time for Defenders of the Fatherland Day, a photo of my own blockade relic. Not that I was a survivor of those hellish 900 days. No, my connection is a bit more tenuous and involves this document:


This is the certificate issued to recipients of the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad," received on March 6, 1944 by one Ivan Vasil'evich Nikiforov, if I'm making out the handwriting correctly. Although it now seems impossible, my memory of how I acquired this item is that it was tossed on the trash heap in the courtyard of the building where we lived in downtown Leningrad, along with the rest of the belongings of its deceased recipient.

Archival photos from wartime Leningrad can be viewed here.

On the validity of comparisons, Russo-British relations, and history

I feel sort of funny using new media to post photos of old media, but this book - bought in the book-buying binge attending the closure of a nearby used bookstore - is too good not to share.

Often in debates over at Sean's Russia Blog, commenters (one in particular) will begin to address criticisms of Russia by criticising other countries and finding that Russia compares favorably or that there is an injustice in criticizing Russia while failing to criticize the other countries mentioned. Sometimes this is relevant - often, it's not. Anyway, this book - Two Commonwealths, by K.E. Holme - published back in 1945 when the Allies were still all friends, shows the extent to which agenda-driven comparisons can be taken. It's also interesting in light of the recent tensions in the Russo-British relationship, although of course it's nothing new that the Allies - US & USSR included - all published "friendly" materials about their soon-to-be Cold-War foes.

Two Commonwealths can be yours on abebooks (see link above) for $30-50, but in the miracle of this going-out-of-business sale I got it for $5 - and my copy included some bookseller's pencil notation on the first page (where the price goes): "A regular Grimm's fairytale." Indeed.

Check out the cool skyline graphics, and the other books in the series (on the back inside flap of the dust jacket) - especially Volume III, which is to be titled How Do You Do, Tovarish? (it was actually published in 1947) and promises to be

A description of daily life, work, and leisure. There are at least two very significant things which the Russian and the British people have in common. They are a warm human sympathy for the oppressed and the unfortunate, and a passionate love of
freedom.

These two photos equate "local government in the Gold Coast" with "local government in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic." The first paragraph of text reads as follows:

Since 1917 Russia has been trying to cram into one generation political changes which have taken three hundred years in Great Britain, and economic changes which have occupied the best part of two centuries.

Translation: they may be backward, but at least they're trying real hard! And the direct comparison of the "two commonwealths'" policies toward their respective subject peoples is relevant to portions of this recent SRB discussion.

Photo captions:

"Indian contingent at the Coronation of H.M. King George VI. The British Commonwealth is united by the allegiance of all its members to the Crown."

"Parade on the twenty-first anniversary of the October Revolution, which ended Russian domination over the formerly subject peoples. Now they all serve in the Red Army."

And the visuals created by the Isotype Institute (credited on the book's front cover above - apparently this institute was a design innovator) are priceless and require no commentary - just click on the images to see them expanded: