Soviet-era erotic alphabet book from 1931 [Советская эротическая азбука 1931 года]

Posted by Ross Wolfe

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Image: This threesome brought
to you by the letter «А» (1931)

UPDATE: Apparently it was Giuliano Vivaldi behind the whole rumor that this collection was intended to “combat adult illiteracy,” as I put it here. He wrote: “I copied this from someone’s wall and added with a few exclamation marks that it was part of Stalin’s fight against illiteracy (joke intended). Since then my joke was cited as fact and traveled the internet.”

Consider me trolled! Still prefer to think of it having been conceived for that purpose.

Reproduced here are a bunch of scans from a fascinating erotic alphabet book printed in the Soviet Union circa 1931, made to combat adult illiteracy. By the sculptor and future People’s Artist of the USSR Sergei Merkurov [Сергей Меркуров], no less. For those of you who enjoyed my previous post on classic Soviet board-games from the 1920s, this should be right up your alley.

Ц, Ш

As a friend points out, these images draw upon clear precedents in the phallic imagery of ancient Roman art. Throughout the ABC book one can find images of horny satyrs, indecent cupids, and flying disembodied cocks. Given Merkurov’s own fascination with ancient Greek and Roman art, this is hardly surprising. No doubt, all of these precedents were consciously invoked. Though it is admittedly somewhat interesting to see various dirty motifs cribbed from the style of Roman antiquity deployed for the purposes of a Soviet literacy campaign, which was itself such a distinctly modernizing project.

This should stand as definite challenge the false notion that the Soviet Union suppressed its citizens’ sexual desires, or was in the least conservative when it came to such matters. At least, not until Stalin achieved full control and instituted conservative policies. And, ironically, illustrated by the same man who’d later be commissioned by the Soviet government to sculpt a number of famous monuments to Stalin.

Ф, Ь

Anna Khachiyan‘s reaction is worthy of inclusion here:

Thanks for sharing this — it is fantastic! All my years of tumblr trolling, and I’ve never seen anything nearly as good. And so artfully done, too. Alas, if only they had this much sex in real life.

But I must ask: What ever happened to the letter «Ж» in these drawings? This would be a difficult letter to navigate, sexually, but imagine the erotic possibilities!

Anyway, without further delay, some acknowledgments:

All of these great images are reposted from the brilliant Russian Livejournal account Isle of Crimea [Остров Крым].

Needless to say, these are not safe for work. Enjoy. Continue reading →

Studies on hysterical materialism

Posted by Ross Wolfe

Three essays

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Image: Il’ia Chashnik,
Kosmos (1925)

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A brief overview of the recent series on hysterical materialism: its etiology, pathology, symptomology. Needless to say, these three studies represent a major contribution to the field of medical Marxism, and should aid in the production of new vaccines, remedies, and prophylactic techniques for the treatment (and prevention) of materialist hysteria.

Also, note well:

Masturbation is to eros what suicide is to thanatos.

Enjoy. Continue reading →

Hysterical materialism

Posted by Ross Wolfe

An historical diagnosis

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Image: Gustav Klutsis,
Composition (1921)

“Historical materialism,” Franz Mehring once wrote, popularizing the phrase, “approaches every section of history without any preconceptions.”

Hysterical materialism — it might be said, phrasing things quite oppositely — approaches any supposed “sectarian” with every preconception.

In explicating the former, historical materialism, Mehring was simply making public something that his friend and comrade Friedrich Engels had already communicated to him in private. The term, abbreviated “histomat” (after «истмат», a good Soviet portmanteau), referred to a general outlook and a methodology for interpreting social reality. Quite fittingly, Mehring sought to explain historical materialism’s emergence in the second half of the nineteenth century by applying the historical materialist method reflexively to itself. Continue reading →

Lenin for children

Posted by Ross Wolfe

A picture gallery

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Image: Detail from poster encouraging literacy:
“Lenin is dead; Leninism lives”
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From Krupskaia’s Reminiscences of Lenin

Lenin’s solicitude for the children was strikingly manifested during the famine that prevailed in 1919. The food situation became critical in May. At the second meeting of the Economic Commissium Ilyich raised the question of rendering relief in kind to the children of the workers.

Towards the end of May 1919 the situation got worse. There were lots of grain, thousands of tons of it, in the Ukraine, the Caucasus and in the East, but the civil war had cut off all communications, the central industrial districts were starving. The Commissariat of Education was swamped with complaints about there being nothing to feed the children with.

Lenin and Children, Young Guard (1924)

On May 14, 1919, the army of the North-Western Government launched an offensive against Petrograd. On May 15 General Rodzyaako had taken Gdov, the Estonian and Finnish White Guard troops started to advance, and fighting began at Koporskaya Bay. Ilyich was concerned about Petrograd. It was characteristic of him that at this very same time, on May 17, he put through a decree for children to be fed free of charge. This decree provided for the improvement of the food supply for children and the welfare of the working people, and ordered that such supplies should be issued free of charge to all children up to 14 irrespective of their parents’ ration class. The decree applied to the large industrial centres of sixteen non-agricultural gubernias. Continue reading →

Disclaimer

Posted by Ross Wolfe

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Image: Grigorii Zinov’ev in 1936,
mugshot taken after his confession

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Just to clear up some recent confusion surrounding my blog, responsibility for the views contained therein, and so on. Some reconsideration and reevaluation of formerly-held opinions — some good old-fashioned самокритика — may well be in order.

The opinions expressed on my blog are mine alone, unless otherwise indicated. (I have occasionally reposted articles and interviews from various other sources). In any case, they do not necessarily reflect the views of any other group or organization. No one else is responsible for them.

Moreover, having maintained this blog for several years now, some of the positions taken in pieces I’ve posted in the past may no longer even reflect my current opinion on a given issue. This doesn’t exonerate me for having written them, of course, but hopefully it will alert the reader to the relative fluidity of my perspective over time.

All of this being said, however, any comments, questions, and criticisms would be welcomed.

Family collectives and comradely communes: Three color illustrations from Modern Architecture (1930)

Posted by Ross Wolfe

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IMAGE: Poster advertising the first exhibition
of the Soviet magazine Modern Architecture
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The following are extremely rare color prints from the legendary Soviet avant-garde architectural publication Modern Architecture [Современная архитектура], depicting communes for comrades [товарищеский коммуны] and collective housing units for families [семейные коллективы].

Incidentally, this would be the last issue of the journal before changing its name to Soviet Architecture [Советская архитектура] at the beginning of 1931.

Communal dwelling for comrades [товарищеская коммуна] № 17, Modern Architecture (1930)

While its covers often featured bold color schemes, the illustrations on the pages in between were nearly always black-and-white. This was so even with an issue entirely devoted to color and light in architecture, which included detailed graphs and optical charts measuring and explaining color spectra, but no color pieces. Continue reading →

Cubo-futurist rendering of Trotsky, uncredited (probably Annenkov, 1922)

Trotskiana

Posted by Ross Wolfe

1920s Trotsky memorabilia

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Back in 2008, Mansur Mirovalev wrote a piece for NBC News on a curious leftover from the late Cold War era:

The Soviet Union may be in the dustbin of history, but there’s one place the socialist utopia lives on: cyberspace.

And no, Mirovalev wasn’t talking about this blog, or Richard Seymour’s Lenin’s Tomb, Roland Boer’s Stalin’s Moustache, or Martin Gittins’ magnificent Kosmograd website.

He had something quite different in mind. Continue reading →

Nikolai Suetin's crypto-Suprematist model for the 1937 Soviet Pavilion, featuring Iofan's Palace of the Soviets

Nikolai Suetin’s crypto-Suprematist model for the Paris 1937 Soviet Pavilion, featuring Iofan’s Palace of the Soviets

Posted by Ross Wolfe

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IMAGE: Suetin’s model
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From the first chapter of Douglas Murphy‘s Architecture of Failure (if you haven’t checked this book out by now, you really should):

Industrial exhibitions of one kind or another had been held for at least half a century before 1851. However, as the Great Exhibition would be the first that was international in any sense, and as it would also be an event on a scale that dwarfed any previous exhibition, then it is not unreasonable to think of it in terms of a ‘first of its kind.’ Moreover, it set in motion a massive cultural movement; the Great Exhibition is often said to be the birth of modern capitalist culture, both in terms of the promotion of ideologies of free trade and competitive display but also in the new ways in which objects were consumed, and how they were seen. Benjamin refers to how the exhibitions were ‘training schools in which the masses, barred from consuming, learned empathy with exchange value,’ while more recently Peter Sloterdijk would write that with the Great Exhibition, ‘a new aesthetic of immersion began its triumphal procession through modernity.’ The financial success of the Great Exhibition was swiftly emulated: both New York and Paris would hold their own exhibitions within the next five years, and there would be a great many others held throughout the century all over the world. As time went on, the event would slowly metamorphose into what is now known as the ‘Expo’, a strange shadow counterpart to the events of so long ago, but one that still occurs, albeit fitfully, and with a strange, undead quality to it. By the time the first half-century of exhibitions was over the crystalline behemoths of the early exhibitions had been replaced by the ‘pavilion’ format, whereby countries, firms and even movements would construct miniature ideological edifices to their own projected self-identities. The 1900 Paris exhibition was the first to truly embrace this format, and in future years one could encounter such seminal works of architecture such as Melnikov’s Soviet Pavilion and Le Corbusier’s Pavilion Esprit Nouveau (Paris 1925), Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion (Barcelona 1929), Le Corbusier & Iannis Xenakis’ Phillips Pavilion (Brussels 1958), or witness the desperately tragic face-off between Albert Speer and Boris Iofan (Paris 1937). Continue reading →

From Bauhaus to Beinhaus

Posted by Ross Wolfe

In answer to some questions

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IMAGE: The Charnel-House blog banner,
lifted from Gustav Klutsis’ 1922 piece
“Electrification of the whole country”
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In 1981, Tom Wolfe published a funny (but hopelessly reactionary) text on modernist architecture entitled From Bauhaus to our house.

In 2008, Ross Wolfe published an unfunny (but hopefully revolutionary) blog on modernist architecture subtitled “From Bauhaus to Beinhaus.”

Let us examine their respective etymologies:

Bauhaus |ˈbouˌhous|
……a school of design established by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, best known for its designs of objects based on functionalism and simplicity.
……ORIGIN German, ‘house of architecture,’ from Bau ‘building’ + Haus ‘house.’

Beinhaus |ˈbaɪ̯nˌhaʊ̯s|
……ossuary, charnel-house, catacombs.
……ORIGIN German, ‘house of bones,’ from Bein ‘bone’ + Haus ‘house.’

The rest should be self-evident.

Tea, anyone? Nikolai Suetin’s ceramic Suprematism, 1922-1928

Posted by Ross Wolfe

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IMAGE: Nikolai Suetin,
Suprematist teasets
(Moscow, 1925-1926)
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Along with Il’ia Chashnik, Nikolai Suetin was Kazimir Malevich‘s most devoted disciple. He first came under the great master’s tutelage during his studies at the Vitebsk School of Art in 1918, where he also trained with the renowned artist Jean Pougny. Though a skilled painter, designer, and ceramicist in his own right, Suetin spent much of his time promoting Malevich’s body of work and keeping a photographic record of his life. Unlike his mentor, Suetin never theorized his work in so self-conscious a fashion. In 1924, however, he recorded a brief artistic creed in staccato verse, disavowing every attempt to systematize his work:

neither non-objectivity
nor object
what?
“X,” I reply
it signifies the sum of my painterly thought
in the world, and hence
the answer to the question
of modernity…
No system binds me, as I am unsystematic.
A reasonably logical premise can demonstrate any system, but I am alogical and therefore overcome the systems of cubism, futurism, and suprematism.”

ни беспредметность
ни предмет.
что?
я отвечаю X (икс)
это значит сумма моей живописной мысли
на мир и значит
ответ на вопрос осязания
современности «…»
Никакая система не связывает меня, ибо я бессистемен «…»
Разумно логической предпосылкой можно доказать всякую систему, но я алогичен и потому преодолеваю системы кубизма, футуризма и супрематизма «…»

While Suetin authored numerous remarkable works, perhaps his most striking pieces came in the form of Suprematist plateware commemorating the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917. These were made over the course of the 1920s, especially from 1922-1928. Included in this post are several very high-resolution photographs of these works. Enjoy!

Nikolai Suetin’s Suprematist plateware

Nikolai Suetin, Suprematist plateware (1922-1928)

“Comrades!

The twin fires of war and revolution have devastated both our souls and our cities. The palaces of yesterday’s grandeur stand as burnt-out skeletons. The ruined cities await new builders[…]

To you who accept the legacy of Russia, to you who will (I believe!) tomorrow become masters of the whole world, I address the question: with what fantastic structures will you cover the fires of yesterday?” ⎯ Vladimir Maiakovskii, “An Open Letter to the Workers” (1918)

“Utopia transforms itself into actuality. The fairy tale becomes a reality. The contours of socialism will become overgrown with iron flesh, filled with electric blood, and begin to dwell full of life. The speed of socialist building outstrips the most audacious daring. In this lies the distinctive character and essence of the epoch.” ⎯ I. Chernia,“The Cities of Socialism” (1929)

“The idea of the conquest of the substructure, the earthbound, can be extended even further and calls for the conquest of gravity as such. It demands floating structures, a physical-dynamic architecture.” ⎯ El Lissitzky, The Reconstruction of Architecture in the Soviet Union (1929)

The Charnel-House

From Bauhaus to Beinhaus

Month: March 2013

Soviet-era erotic alphabet book from 1931 [Советская эротическая азбука 1931 года]

Like this:

Studies on hysterical materialism

Three essays

Like this:

Hysterical materialism

An historical diagnosis

Like this:

Lenin for children

A picture gallery

Like this:

Disclaimer

Like this:

Family collectives and comradely communes: Three color illustrations from Modern Architecture (1930)

Like this:

Trotskiana

1920s Trotsky memorabilia

Like this:

Nikolai Suetin’s crypto-Suprematist model for the Paris 1937 Soviet Pavilion, featuring Iofan’s Palace of the Soviets

Like this:

From Bauhaus to Beinhaus

In answer to some questions

Like this:

Tea, anyone? Nikolai Suetin’s ceramic Suprematism, 1922-1928

Nikolai Suetin’s Suprematist plateware

Like this:

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

Three essays

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

An historical diagnosis

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

A picture gallery

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

1920s Trotsky memorabilia

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

In answer to some questions

With lightning telegrams:

Like this:

Nikolai Suetin’s Suprematist plateware

With lightning telegrams:

Like this: