Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky and Maxim Dmitriev documented drastically different facets of Russia in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Soviet Union
Posted inFilm
Excavating Rare and Suppressed Footage of the Soviet Era
MUBI gets Back in the USSR with a streaming series featuring archival documentaries by Sergei Loznitsa.
Posted inFilm
A TV Miniseries Brings the Chernobyl Disaster Back Into Public Discussion
HBO and Sky UK’s Chernobyl draws from thorough research to evoke the fear and confusion surrounding the nuclear accident.
Posted inFilm
Werner Herzog Adds to Mikhail Gorbachev’s Endlessly Strange Pop Culture Legacy
In the documentary Meeting Gorbachev, Herzog finds nostalgia for a lost past.
Posted inArt
Vintage “Soviet Santa” Postcards Were Propaganda for the Space Race
Vintage Soviet postcards reveal a sophisticated political project, one that uses the allure of nostalgia to create a vision of a utopian, space-age future.
Posted inIn Brief
The Spy Who Taught Me: Bulgaria Accuses Julia Kristeva of Cold War Espionage
The Franco-Bulgarian scholar, philosopher, and psychoanalyst has been accused of being a spy for the Bulgarian government in the early 1970s.
Posted inArt
The Newly Expanded Wende Museum Offers a Nuanced Perspective on the Cold War
Amid continued misconceptions about the Cold War and Russia, the mission of the Wende Museum is vital.
Posted inBooks
Ukraine’s Monumental Soviet-Era Mosaics
Often unremarked or dismissed as state propaganda, Ukraine’s Soviet-era mosaics are also artworks in themselves that speak to a complex history.
Posted inBooks
The Utopian Leisure of Soviet Sanatoriums
Unlike Westerners, Soviets preferred to vacation at sanatoriums, which were modernist structures infused with a sense of utopia.
Posted inArt
An Interactive Database Helps You Explore the Art of Soviet Children’s Books
Playing Soviet: The Visual Languages of Early Soviet Children’s Books, 1917-1953 is an online interactive from Princeton University exploring children’s books in the Soviet Union.
Posted inBooks
The Graphic Persuasiveness of 20th-Century Communist Posters
The first major survey of communist poster art considers the visual legacy of propaganda graphic design in nations around the world.
Posted inBooks
The Playful Yet Sobering Anti-Alcohol Posters of the Soviet Union
A new book from Fuel features previously unpublished anti-alcohol posters from the 1960s to ’80s in the Soviet Union.