ABCs of the Revolution
https://doi.org/10.25281/2072-3156-2020-17-3-278-291
Abstract
The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.
About the Author
Egor A. Yesyunin
Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov under the Russian Academy of Arts
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
30, Tovarishchesky Lane, Moscow, 109004, Russia
ORCID 0000-0001-8655-3295; SPIN 4680-9393
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- In the fire of the Civil War, a new type of agitational art was born - the agitation ABC. Such ABCs were usually satirical.
- After the success of the "Soviet ABC" by V.V. Mayakovsky, poster artists (M. Cheremnykh, D. Moor, A. Strakhov) turned to the agitation ABC.
- Many of the creators of agitation ABCs used the popular language of folk art.
Review
For citations:
Yesyunin E.A. ABCs of the Revolution. Observatory of Culture. 2020;17(3):278-291. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.25281/2072-3156-2020-17-3-278-291
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