Print Study Room: Mother Russia’s Daughters and Sons

During the early decades of the Soviet Era in Russia, there existed a vision for a “new society”, based on the idea of radical communalism and increased opportunities for all people, which influenced all aspects of society, including architecture. In this photo, we see a savings association for miners and sailors built according to the Constructivist architectural model, which employed unique asymmetrical tropes, as displayed here. The Soviet government urged Constructivist architects to design buildings to encourage “new Soviet people” to feel that they were part of a new, modern and prosperous society. Under Stalin’s new “industrialized” society, miners and other laborers had a particularly high status, and thus deserved innovative distinctive state institutions to serve them. The photo is a valuable example of the architectural style and social values that prevailed in the early 1930s in Soviet Russia.

Margaret Bourke-White was a professional American photographer whose work became famous in the US in the 1930s and 40s in publications such as Life magazine. This photo perfectly symbolizes Soviet Russia’s rapid industrialization process which took place under the leadership of Josef Stalin beginning in 1929. Russian leaders long knew they had to radically modernize the country’s industry and agriculture. But not until the rise of Josef Stalin did the national government possess both the will and means to do so rapidly and totally, if at brutal cost to the population. The woman depicted in the photo exemplifies the Stalinist-era’s call for “new Soviet women” to take up new trades and become active in the industrial labor force. They would do so in large numbers, despite the fact that Stalin’s industrialization drive never to provided women with leadership or advancement opportunities equal to those available to men.

This image displays a complex circuit room of unknown purpose; it is possibly a telephone exchange or massive computer mainframe. Three of the four workers portrayed in the image are women, and the central character of the picture is a woman busy at work in a lab coat. During the Soviet era, women made up a significant portion of technical engineers and scientists in Russia. The photo is likely from the late 1930s, the era of the establishment of the Soviet Creative Conference of Women Scientists. The photographer, Dmitri Baltermants, worked for numerous Soviet government-sponsored newspapers throughout the 1930s and WWII. His photography was used domestically by the Soviets to highlight the country’s status as a modern, technologically-advanced communist superpower, and was intended to be seen by both the Russian people and the rest of the world.

This photograph was taken in Berlin by Dmitri Baltermants, a Soviet photographer and self-proclaimed virtuoso of staged photography, shortly after Soviet Russia had emerged victorious in the Battle of Berlin. It conveys the theme of Soviet heroism, which is present in much of Baltermants’ work. The star-shaped medal worn by “The Victor” represents the heroism and bravery of those who served the Soviet state in the war and conveys the image of the Soviet Union as a strong, advanced, and, crucially, victorious country.

Pictured here is a memorial to the famous World War Two Battle of Stalingrad called Mamayev Kurgan (The Motherland Calls), located in the Russian city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). The foreground of the photo shows a man holding a gun; he represents the idealized, virtually superhuman, Russian worker and soldier. The female statue in the background is named Rodina-Mat and is the largest free-standing sculpture in the world. She tells the story of Soviet Russia’s pain and ultimate triumph in the Battle of Stalingrad. The many people seen gathered around her memorialize the thousands of Russian soldiers slain in the battle and buried beneath her.