San Antonio College Library

In the decades of the Cold War before glasnost and perestroika, dissident Soviet artists produced a dramatic, vital body of art - work that was forbidden and secret, but that survived and flourished despite persecution. Artists risked personal safety, imprisonment, and exile in their quest for individual expression. In opposition to the government-prescribed patriotic style of Socialist Realism, these "unofficial" artists worked in prohibited styles...

The Soviet Union was unique in its formidable and dynamic use of the illustrated book as a means of propaganda. Through the book, the U.S.S.R. articulated its totalitarian ideologies and expressed its absolute power in an unprecedented way; through avant-garde writing and radical artistic design that was in full flower during the 1920s and 1930s. No other country, nation, government or political system promoted itself more by attracting and employing...