BRUNSWICK

This fall marks the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution that helped usher in the Soviet Union. At Bowdoin College, professors have been organizing courses, lectures, symposiums and forums on the topic. The Bowdoin College Museum of Art, meanwhile, is displaying dozens of propaganda posters that were ubiquitous during the era between the two world wars.

“Constructing Revolution: Soviet Propaganda Posters from between the World Wars,” now on view, features more than 70 posters that sought to capture the Soviet’s idea of a utopia during an era of upheaval.

It was a Bowdoin alumni, Eric Silverman, who informed the museum of the collection of Soviet propaganda posters produced between 1917 and World War II that he amassed with his wife, Svetlana.

There’s been a lot of alarming news in recent years as Russia has begun reasserting itself on the world stage — including the annexation of Crimea and involvement in the ongoing Ukrainian civil war. As more facts about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election come to light, the exhibit seems even more timely.

“Russia is very much in the news these days, so it’s very interesting to reflect on a historic period from earlier in the 20th century,” said Frank H. Goodyear, museum co-director. “After the revolution in 1917, the government set up a propaganda organization that produced the kind of messaging they wanted to broadcast, not only to Soviet citizenry, but to the world. One element to that were these posters. It’s so interesting to see the kind of messages that they’re conveying, and how they controlled the way the messages are communicated. … There are definitely reverberations in the world today.”

Many of the posters idolized the ideals of the Soviet state, suggesting Communist progress and innovation was an unstoppable force for good against the perceived evils of capitalism.

Guest curator Kristina Toland noted the artists featured in the exhibit came from different backgrounds. Many of the artists whose work are featured in the exhibit believed in the cause “wholeheartedly.” Others contributed so as not to become persecuted by the regime.

“In 1918, the country was in complete disarray,” Toland said. “The cities were blockaded, there was a supply shortage. But the artists were given rations, they were given food. So a lot of them started working for the state to stay alive.”

Toland said, “They felt that through their art they were contributing to this revolution. They were just as productive as the worker in the factory. They saw themselves as constructors and engineers.”

Some artists managed to endure the at-times brutal and turbulent Soviet regime, but not all. Some were killed and others were silenced, according to Toland.

“A lot of artists who embraced the revolution had to be silenced,” Toland said. “We have works from Gustav Gustavovich Klutsis … responsible for some of the most daring photo montages … He was arrested and executed, and his wife and partner — also a graphic designer — did not find out the exact circumstances of his death until the late ‘80s.”

So, is it art?

There are different aesthetics that come into play when making a Soviet propaganda poster, according to Toland. Many poster designs from the early Soviet era were heavily influenced by Russian Orthodox icons, especially those featuring Lenin or Stalin — ironic, considering the Soviets’ embrace of atheism.

The posters also employ a number of different media, including drawings and photography.

As with any successful advertising campaign, the posters are designed to be able to hammer home both image and message to the average Soviet citizen in a succinct way.

“To make a successful poster, you have to follow a certain formula, and not specific to Russia,” Toland said. That includes a short, catchy slogan, dramatic color combinations and symbolic motifs — an outstretched hand or a fist, for example.

The posters were designed to be temporary, appearing on the sides of buildings, inside factories, cafeterias and schools. Add to that the conformist messages and warnings on and of the posters (some posters are stamped with the message that their removal is considered counter-revolutionary), and one has to wonder — is it art? Why is Soviet-era propaganda displayed in an art museum?

“There have been artists for centuries who have been interested in creating works that convey messages, sometimes of a political stripe,” Goodyear said. “And they’ve done so in all sorts of different artistic medium. … It happened that posters became the delivery system for many truly outstanding Soviet artists at this time.”

Goodyear continued: “There’s all sorts of first-tier artists whose practice includes poster design, but also includes painting and photography and other visual traditions as well.”

Goodyear noted the museum’s nearly 3,000-year-old reliefs that speak of the greatness of a Syrian king. … There’s all sorts of interesting echoes of other works at the museum right now that show off a very well-constructed message about a person, a subject, a question of the times.”

“Art museums are places where we welcome conversation about sometimes difficult topics. We are trying to describe the tradition from which they came, we’re trying to describe how this Soviet state thought of itself, envisioned its priority. But we also point out how the reality doesn’t match up with the message. As much as these posters might celebrate the ‘great heroes’ like Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky, these individuals were controversial figures in their day, and continue to be so today.”

Goodyear says reaction to the exhibit — recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal — has been positive. “The posters are big, and they are bold, and there’s a lot of extraordinary experimentation in terms of graphic design,” Goodyear said.

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com

Also at the museum …

A concurrent exhibit of photographs by Soviet photojournalist Dmitri Baltermants, “Dmitri Baltermants: Documenting and Staging a Soviet Reality,” is curated by Bowdoin student Johna Cook. The exhibit explores World War II and its aftermath in the USSR in the Soviet Union in photos that Baltermants would manipulate or alter in order to tow the Soviet propaganda line.

According to the museum, Baltermants’s photographs straddle “the line between fact and fiction, his photographs served as an important form of state propaganda and reveal much about Soviet hopes and challenges at mid-century.”

Additionally there will be a discussion titled “How an Uprising Became a Revolution” on Nov. 30 at 4:30 p.m., Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center, Bowdoin College.

Semion Lyandres, professor of history, University of Notre Dame, discusses the first Russian Revolution that occurred in February 1917.

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