Semiotics of visual iconicity in Leninist `monumental' propaganda

Abstract

Leninist propaganda conveyed through artistic monuments (referred to in this article as `monumental' propaganda) — painting, sculpture, urban architecture — was intended as a way of communicating key political ideas to a largely illiterate population. The politically motivated character of the visual icon made it a helpful tool of communication and instruction, and gradually the visual icon became confused with reality itself. In the 1920s, the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) pioneered the use of artistic images as a documental attestation of reality. Under Stalin, monumental visual signs offered an idealized vision of the Communist future as an already achieved reality. Sculptures and paintings secured the state leader's symbolic presence in every corner of the country. Therefore, the subsequent change of political leadership resulted in damnatio memoriae — the destruction of visual images of statesmen from the previous regime. Leninist monumental propaganda perpetuated the neoplatonic artistic tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, which meant there was no clear distinction between the iconic sign and its referent.

Profit rather than politics: the production of Lenin monuments in Soviet Latvia

“…canvases and sculptures provided the artists with additional copyright fees; the low prices of industrially-produced art reduced competition (Afanasyeva, Afiani, and Vodopyanova 2001;Kruk 2008;Yankovskaya 2003;Zezina 1999). The incorporation of the three Baltic countries into the USSR in 1940 expanded the market for political imagery, but national artists were faced with the already existing corrupt system.…”

Visual discourses of the role of women in war commemoration

“…If we look around the world at very big statues we find these generally represent dictators. Kruk (2008) has discussed the outsized statues of Stalin in the Soviet Union that were meant to symbolise not so much the man himself but the collective communist spirit. Michalski (1998: 197) describes the use of such massive monuments as part of a 'ruler's cult' .…”

Beyond ‘Propaganda’: Images and the moral citizen in late-socialist Vietnam

“…The female figure is strikingly feminized, her flying hair and upraised weapon expressive of energy and action, as are the active stances of the male fighters beneath her. Like other statuary of this kind, it is a larger-than-life rendering of a heroic moment that is intended to sum up the will and spirit of community and people as a whole, not to memorialize specific individuals (Kruk 2008). Yet, for local people, the monument instantiates immanence, not impersonal occurrence.…”

“… 2 Taylor and Jonsson 2010; also Bonnell 1997; Andrews and Chen 2000; Dickerman 2000; Landsberger 2001; Hsu 2008; Kruk 2008; Lago 2009; Haskins and Zappen 2010.…”

“… 56 A close approximation of a celebrated Soviet poster celebrating ‘admittance to the Young Pioneers’ (Kruk 2008: 39), it replaces the anonymous official with the President as the focus of this exalting moment of induction.…”