Are you from the former USSR?

[Chava]

For my extended essay, (an obligatory assignment in the IB) I'll be making an analytical study of soviet and nazist realism. in other words, Propaganda art. So, what I want to ask, is if you've lived in a country that experienced either regime, i would like to hear from you, and perhaps send a few questions in connection with my research interviews.

Thanks ahead of time.
Chava

[Boris239]

I'm from Russia originally, so you are welcome to ask me about the soviet regime. I'd like to reccomend you Vassily Grossman's book "Life and fate". There is a good chapter, where the director of German concentration camp summons one of the prisoners- russian communist and says that their countries are so similar, and that he is sure that there'll be peace soon between them. The arguments he is using shake the communist pretty strongly.

[Chava]

Very good to know, i'll PM you the questions soon.
Thanks a lot!

[Koa]

How great! That's one of my topics of interest and I actually did my small thesis on the hidden anti-propaganda art, samizdat if you are familiar with the term - I still have the material if you need anything. I'd like to know what you find out etc, it's not always easy to get a chance to speak directly to people about so many aspects of life during that era.
I read that "Life and Fate" book ages ago, it wasn't an easy read but sure it gives some interesting insights...
Can I ask, Chava, what are you studying? Something related to Russia?

[Chava]

hey Koa,
that's simply brilliant! You've really made my day!
Well over the summer and in connection with my trip to eastern europe, i've been writing an essay on the use of art in the soviet propaganda campaign. however, due to time restraints i'm now forced to constrict it to focus more on the differences in heroic realism as represented by nazi or soviet art.
All that might sound slightly dubious, but i actually find it really interesting.

But what do you mean the hidden anti-propaganda art? I've never heard of it?! I'd love to hear more!
Thanks a lot

[Koa]

Heh, well, I graduate in English and Russian and I'm going to take an MA about Russia and Eastern Europe... :D

Hm let me see what I can find, unfortunately a lot of the material I have is in Italian since that's the language of my studies, and I have also something in Russian, can you read Russian?

[Koa]

Hm found this
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/unpublished-journalism
I don't even remember having read it but I suppose I did as it's in my "thesis" folder LOL, I sure didn't use it but well, maybe it will be helpful

And this is the best article I've ever read
http://www.slis.ualberta.ca/issues/sbalazs/samizdat.htm
it was really helpful in my work - maybe not exactly what you are looking for but maybe you can put that as an aspect...also to make it longer if needed ahaha how long do you have to make it? ;) Wow I'm excited about going to a world where I'll have to write essays, you know in my country the only essay you ever write is your final thesis...

Btw, where in Eastern Europe have you been? Are you from the USA?

[Taliesin]

hey Koa,
that's simply brilliant! You've really made my day!
Well over the summer and in connection with my trip to eastern europe, i've been writing an essay on the use of art in the soviet propaganda campaign. however, due to time restraints i'm now forced to constrict it to focus more on the differences in heroic realism as represented by nazi or soviet art.
All that might sound slightly dubious, but i actually find it really interesting.

But what do you mean the hidden anti-propaganda art? I've never heard of it?! I'd love to hear more!
Thanks a lot

We are not certain think that Koa might be referring to the art of "writing between the lines" - so that it would pass the censors but would still be understandable to people. We think a similar thing might be possible in visual art - perhaps some cultural references or clues or puns (which are good in non-russian countries, since many of the censors were russian and quite a number didn't speak the tongues of the smaller nations well - which makes it better to hide plays of words and everything. Puns get lost in translation so they are hard for censors to notice)
We are from a posttsoviet country, Estonia, but too young to remember anything.

[Koa]

Taliesin, I don't mean writing "between the lines", even though what you suggested is another interesting point of view...
In short, some forbidden texts, like some of Solzhenitsyn's stuff, were circulating illegally in the Soviet Union, copied by people who passed them on to friends etc...
Ah, how stupid, I forgot to recommend you Solzhenytsin's book, I unfortunately don't know the English title but the original is "Bodalsja telenok s dubom", literally something like "the calf hit the oak".
Unfortunately the main text I used and that is one of the main sources on samizdat (even if it was written in the 70s) was first published in Italy and I don't know if an English translation exists, even though I suppose it should, the author is called Yurij Mal'cev (Maltsev with English transliteration I think) and the book is called something like "history of samizdat".

Taliesin, I have literally always wondered, just out of curiosity, can you speak Russian?

[Taliesin]

No, we can't.
There was an option in the fifth grade for second foreign language - german or russian - the parents really did the choice, you had to get a signed paper from them - and they chose german. We believe they wanted more connections with Western Europe rather than with Russia. Russia is not very popular here due to historical reasons.
Now, in secondary school, we thought of starting learning another foreign tongue as an extra subject - we thought whether to take french or russian - and again chose french. (one of the reasons again being rather oriented to the west than east and another was an aesthetical reason - russian sounds orcish here, since there are many criminal russians around)
However, we think that we should learn Russian by ourselves, since the fact that about 40% of Estonias population is russian and many of them can't speak estonian, is here and will stay here.

Sorry for the Offtopic post.

[Koa]

No, we can't.
There was an option in the fifth grade for second foreign language - german or russian - the parents really did the choice, you had to get a signed paper from them - and they chose german. We believe they wanted more connections with Western Europe rather than with Russia. Russia is not very popular here due to historical reasons.

Yeah, I know, I was just wondering if it was common these days too to be able to speak Russian, since you're very near to Russia geographically. When I went to Tallinn I heard Russian spoken everywhere in the street, but maybe there were many tourists...Really some of the Russians there can't speak Estonian???? :eek:

[Boris239]

Unfortunately, there is a lot of tension between Russian and other former Soviet republic. To be fair it is understandable why Russia is not very popular in Estonia or Latvia. But it's not only the Baltic countries- the relations with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia are far from perfect.
As far as I know some Russians in Estonia and Latvia speak only Russian. Some of them are old and don't want to learn the new language and some of them studied in schools where evrything was taught in Russian. Thre is a lot of controversy if such schools should be allowed(I mean state, not private schools).
Having said that I completely understand the animosity towards Russia in Pribaltika, it was very unpleasant for me to see the memorial inscription to the German defenders of Tallinn during the WWII.

[Taliesin]

Hmmm.
The subject you mentioned is a difficult one. We are afraid that it might change into a political argument, but hope that it will not.
We will try to explain. We hope you understand the other point of view.
First, We think that the monument you were referring is not dedicated to Germans, but Estonians fighting in a German uniform.
Second, when we remember our history correctly, when Second World War came, Estonia was caught between two very big and strong occupying forces of totalitarian countries, who had both done great evil and commited heinous crimes against humanity. Estonias had fallen into authoritarity in the early thirties and the Soviet forces made ultimatums and pressed out until they could put their bases in Estonia. Then Soviet forces in Estonia overthrew Estonian government and after a while, sent a „plea“ to be allowed to join the Soviet Union. Thus, Estonia stopped being an independent country de facto and de jure.
Both Soviet and Nazi forces had occupied Estonia during the war. Now, when the Germans started retreating, and the battle line was in Estonia, there were Estonian men wearing both Soviet and German uniforms. It was a horrible, brother-against-brother war.
The question was, there were two major evil forces both dangerous to Estonia. So many Estonian men saw Soviet Union as a greater threat than the Nazis from what they had experienced under the one year of Soviet occupation and the repressions during it, and the three years of Nazi occupation. Estonia didn’t exist at the moment (they tried to use the power vacuum when the German forces retreated out of Estonia and the Soviet forces hadn’t reached the capital yet to declare Second Estonian Republic, but they couldn’t, since Estonian soldiers couldn’t stand against Soviet army by themselves and there wasn’t the support of Western countries, since in the conference at Jalta, Churchill and the American leader at the time had promised Stalin that they won’t raise any objections about the occupation of the Baltic states to stay in good relations with Soviet Union) So the men had to wear the other uniform to protect their country.
Those men were not nazis nor stalinists. They just wanted to protect their country against what seemed the worse of the two evils and had to wear what seemed the uniform of the lesser evil.

[Chava]

Btw, where in Eastern Europe have you been? Are you from the USA?

I'm from Denmark, and we went travelling through south-eastern Germany, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

Taliesin, have you ever seen any propaganda art? in the form of statues, murrels, or others in Estonia? or was it all removed after the fall of soviet, like in most of the other countries?

Boris, do you recollect what people thought about the propaganda art? Did it influence people's lives?

The people whom i've talked to in Romania, Hungary, and Czech Rep, all had different opinions about it, but mostly they agreed that the art severed to ridicule the government unknowingly. For example, Nicolae Ceauşescu had profile portraits of himself hung in all public buildings (several to one room) but the romaian saying that a man with one ear is crazy (can't quite remember the saying, but it runs along those lines) quickly made it a point of mockery, and he soon had it repainted so that one could see both of his ears.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Propaganda_poster_Ceausescu.jpg

This isn't it, but surely you must be familiar with this form of propaganda?

[Boris239]

Taliesin,
It is a very difficult topic and I'll try to be as not biased as possible. First of all, being from Russia and being Jewish it is very unpleasant for me to see anybody in nazi uniform regardless of their motives. I understand that most Estonians weren't fighting for Nazi Germany- they were fighting against the Soviet Union.
I guess one of the fundamental differences in our opinions is that I consider Nazi Germany as much more heinous regime than USSR. It is partly because of my Jewish origin, partly because I know that there were some good things about Soviet Union, although I obviously hate Stalin.
And Germany is as guilty for occupation of Baltic States as USSR is- after all it was done after Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement in the August of 1939. Unfortunately for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, it was either Nazi Germany or communist USSR... I can understand that both options are pretty terrible.

[Boris239]

Chava,
The propaganda art obviouly influenced the life of people. But when you are studying this topic, it is difficult to talk about the whole USSR era in general. During Stalin's time the propanda was extremely efficient- after all people were dying shouting "For Stalin". The propaganda was everywhere- in movies, newspapers, posters. It is sometimes sad to watch old Soviet movies about the postwar competition between two kolhozes, because I know that people were dying from hunger at that time.
It was very different during Perestroyka years. One of the slogans of the government was Glasnost', so much more information was available in the newspapers. Movies about stalinist repressions started to appear. Books, that were available only in SamIzdat, were being published.

[Taliesin]

Taliesin, have you ever seen any propaganda art? in the form of statues, murrels, or others in Estonia? or was it all removed after the fall of soviet, like in most of the other countries?

Hmmm... we don't think we remember anything like that, except perhaps two small things, first: a monument to the Soviet soldier during the Second World War - it hadn't been taken down before and now there is lots of current politics and conflict on that thing, so it is guarded by policemen (sic!). Difficult subject, we would say.
The second occurence is really just a humorous scene from our early childhood when we found quite a number of older Soviet-times children magazines. There were quite interesting articles in there so we read quite a lot. Then we started telling our parents what a good chap Lenin was, and stuff like that.(it was in the magazine! How can it be not true?") :D Well, they explained us how things really were, but it seems still funny, thinking back.

And that is all we can remember. We guess that other things were removed after the fall of SU.

(we really ought to pay a visit to the occupation museum in Tallinn next time we go to the capital and have enough time)

[Chava]

oh wow, that's an aspect i'd clean forgotten! how remarkable. what sort of stories were they? the usual propaganda, for the people, etc, or do you recollect anything more specific?

[Koa]

It is not really propaganda but in Kiev there is still a statue of Lenin, and some other monuments that looked evidently sovietic. While as far as I know everything of that sort has been taken off in countries like Hungary and Czech Rep. etc.
In L'vov instead I saw a monument to the victims of communist crimes.

[aeroport]

Chave,
I am a simple American teenage boy, and so have no real experience to share, but, if you have not seen or heard of her already, I would direct you to the films of Leni Riefenstahl (particularly her "Triumph of the Will"), several of which are available on Amazon.

[Boris239]

About old stories about Lenin there is an anekdote:

A teacher with a bunch of kindergarten children are going to the camping trip. In the woods they see a hedgehog. "Who is it?", the teacher asks. Silence. Teacher tries "About whom do we read stories? About whom do we sing songs?". Silence. After everybody left, one of the kids approaches the hedgehog and says: "That's how you look like, Grandpa Lenin!"

[Thorwench]

Chava, are you looking only for propaganda comparison in literature or do you include other forms of art (like posters) as well? There is an edition of Russian WWII posters by Kontakt-Kultura, ISBN 5-93882-008-1. On page 41 there is a poster of a blond woman holding in her left hand a machine gun and in her right a bundle of wheat. (created by Shmarinov in 1942) What is striking is that the poster could, at first, be mistaken for a Nazi propaganda poster because of the woman's image and the entire body language. The woman is blond, has a German hairdo (this wreath of hair twisted around the head), blue eyes, strongly set mouth etc. In essence, she looks like Hitlers idea of what a German woman should be like. However, a German poster at the time would not have shown a farmers wife with a machine gun. The machine gun in a woman's hand designates the poster as definitely Russian. The means and aesthetic concept pertaining to propaganda art at this time in history were pretty much alike for Germany and Russia, but was also the style used in the US and elsewhere. The difference is, as far as I believe, not in the style but in the ideological content. The nazis didn't see German women as fighters or as taking mens' roles, they were seen as breeding machines and their main function in society was to be a mother of hopefully many healthy sons. (to produce canon fodder) Russian art depicts the homeland, rodina, as a strong middle-aged woman who is calling her children (male and female) to protect their land. This role of woman is entirely unthinkable in German propaganda at the time. If you are interested I can try to scan the image and send it.

[Koa]

About old stories about Lenin there is an anekdote:

A teacher with a bunch of kindergarten children are going to the camping trip. In the woods they see a hedgehog. "Who is it?", the teacher asks. Silence. Teacher tries "About whom do we read stories? About whom do we sing songs?". Silence. After everybody left, one of the kids approaches the hedgehog and says: "That's how you look like, Grandpa Lenin!"

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Chava]

:)
Actually, i'm mostly concerned with realist paintings, but what i'm really searching for is the way people percieve propaganda. I haven't seen the poster which you refer to, but many others that go along the same lines, and I agree whole heartidly that it's russian, since the Nazi realism strove to express women as the ultimataly feminine...

Jamesian
I have indeed looked into Reifenstahl, as well as Eisenstein who directed "October" for the Soviets.
What i found remarkable was the portrayal of the nazi's in the soviet movie, they were portrayed as mindless subservient people whom clung to thier ideal despite any supports of their beliefs. basically, highlighted all Nazi features.
The killer in that connection, is the fact that several Nazi films (not only by Reifenstahl) portray Nazis in exactly the same way. Now isn't that ironic?

[Thorwench]

Chava, since you are from Denmark and probably can travel easily by ferry to the north of Germany, there is an exhibition of Arno Breker in Schwerin (one hour drive south from Rostock or Wismar) still running until October. It is the first personal exhibition of Breker (who was Hitler's favoured sculptor) since 1945 and quite controversial. I went there two weeks ago and I think this is, despite the objectors, a very good exhibition which shows Breker's NS-art as well, which you would normally never see. It also has some interesting information and examples of NS-realism, which actually comes along as some hyper-realism such as can also be seen in Riefenstahl's NS-time work. The question for me is, is hyper-realism really necessarily linked to NS-ideology or is it a style that existed everwhere (Metropolis by Fritz Lang? is hyper). Emil Nolde really was a Nazi but is anything but hyper. OK, the Nazis did like Nolde, less so his art. But shouldn't he be drawn to hyper-realism since he shared NS-ideological beliefs much more than Breker or Riefenstahl did?

[Chava]

The term that generally covers both nazi and soviet art is Heroic realism.
Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_realism)

Thanks very much for the exhibition reference, something i might quite possibly do.