Soviet Art

Soviet painter Victor Shatalin – ‘Squads of young fighters were gathering’. 1969-1970. canvas, oil

Russian Soviet painter Victor Shatalin (1926 – 2003) was a master of genre painting on the military, revolutionary and patriotic themes. Victor was born in a village of Saratov region. From the age of 13 he studied at the Leningrad Art School at the Academy of Arts of the USSR. In 1941, 15-year-old boy went to the front, and became the “son of regiment” of the 1st Ukrainian Front. After the end of World War II, in 1945, Victor attended the Kiev Art School named after Shevchenko, after which he entered the Kiev Art Institute.
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Orange sky of Soviet children. Georgian singer Irma Sokhadze

Orange sky of Soviet children. In the 60s of the last century the song “Orange Song” was very popular in then the USSR. This song was first sung by a 7 year-old Georgian singer Irma Sokhadze during her first tour in Moscow. She sang the “Orange Song” in the garden of “Hermitage” in summer of 1965. In a very short time the song became insanely popular. It was sung by everybody. Yet the voice of 7 year-old Irma could not be confused with someone. It was recognized at once – an amazing lyricism and striking for the child professional tone. The song was specially written for Irma by poets Grigory Gorin and Arkady Arkanov in collaboration with composer Konstantin Pevzner.
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Fashion in the Soviet Union. Svetlana Morgunova, TV presenter

Do not believe those who mistakenly say that there wasn’t fashion in the Soviet Union, and if even it was, then all was copied from the West. Soviet fashion of the Soviet era has always existed since the time of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. So called Gatsby style with its short hairstyles, cute hats and dresses with low waist blossomed in the 1920-30s. Fashion rapidly developed after the Second World War. Women who a decade earlier had to forget about their feminine essence, put on rough clothes and stand up to the machine, or even go to the front, again wanted to be beautiful. Soviet woman were interested in fashion, always dressed fashionably, sewing herself using fashion magazine or ordered desirable model in the fashion atelier, there were a lot of them in every city of the USSR. Soviet fashion magazines, the choice of which was always offered to the clients of fashion atelier. Fashion magazines were available through the subscriptions, by mail. There was such a postal service – an annual subscription to fashion magazines. The first Fashion House was opened in Moscow, and it got the status of all-Union. In 1953 it first took part in a Prague International Competition of clothes. Almost every major industrial city had its own fashion house. Fashion magazines were published by Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk, Kiev fashion houses. Every fashion house had its own shop selling new models.
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Iconic photo of Lilya Brik. 1925. Soviet photographer Alexander Rodchenko

Most photos his photos Soviet photographer Alexander Rodchenko created in the late 20’s – 30’s of the last century. At that time he was mainly worked in magazine photo. Together with Varvara Stepanova, he creates one of the first thematic photo albums on the history of the USSR. In particular, the Red Army, and the socioeconomic development of the Central Asian republics of the USSR. At the same time, the Soviet photographic art reached its peak. And it was no accident. Photographers were able to depict the unprecedented in its scale industrialization processes to depict a grand process of the socialist transformation of the country and society. In the editorial column of the first famous magazine “USSR in Construction”, with which Rodchenko constantly collaborated as a photographer and designer, photograph was proclaimed one of the main types of Soviet art, displaying socialist construction in the dynamics.
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“Road”. USSR gypsies by Soviet photographer Ljalja Kuznetsova

At the end of the 1970s Soviet photographer Ljalja Kuznetsova shot one of the gypsy camps in the USSR (in Turkmenistan), and later her gypsy series continued in Odessa steppes. “When they say that I worship free life of gypsies or something like that, I think, a photograph is kind of self-portrait of the photographer. When I mastered the camera, learned how to develop film, how it is printed, I began to search frames, conformable to my heart. Of course, for any of the rights of Roma, I did not fight, I just realized that in our society, they are deprived of many rights. Most of them are people who go to the horizon and the horizon moves away from them”.
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George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev. 1990s. Soviet photographer Yuri Abramochkin

Soviet photographer Yuri Abramochkin was born in 1936 in Moscow. Yuri Abramochkin entered the inner circle of reporters, allowed to shoot the first persons of the state, and his work – interesting evidence so different in content periods of the country’s life. The heroes of his works – the political leaders of our time from the second half of the 20th century to the present day: general secretaries Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, President Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, the leaders of other countries – Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, Yasser Arafat, Yuri Luzhkov, five American presidents from Richard Nixon to George Bush Sr., famous figures of science and art. A talented artist, he is equally fine in photographing landscapes and ordinary people, moments of their life in a kaleidoscope of ever-changing events of the epoch.
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Soviet ballerina Ekaterina Maximova

Outstanding Soviet ballerina Ekaterina Maximova was born on February 1, 1939 in Moscow. Her father, Sergei Maksimov was an engineer and her mother Tatyana Maximova – journalist and editor of the publishing house. Grandpa of Ekaterina Maximova – Gustav Shpet was a Russian philosopher, psychologist, art theorist, translator of philosophical and artistic literature. Moreover, among Maksimovs’ relatives were composer Rachmaninoff and pre-revolutionary Minister Guchkov. Later, Ekaterina Maximova told: “Nevertheless, I grew up an ordinary girl. Like everyone in the USSR, I was Little Octobrist, Pioneer, Komsomol member. We did not emigrate to the West, like some of our friends. I could not break away from Russia, mother, friends. I could not imagine life without my native Moscow, Kostroma village Ryzhevka where Volodya and I bought a house.”
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