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The 16 posters reproduced here are reprints, part of a set of at least 21 (from well over 1000 originally published 1941-1945), published in 1985 by Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad. The English translations are taken from information printed on the back of each poster, including the names of the artists where known, and their birth/death dates.
Select the thumbnail for a larger image. The photograph below is the trio of artists known collectively as The KuKryNiks, or Kukryniksi:
Mikhail Kupryanov (1903-?); Porfiry Krylov (1902-1990) and Nikolai Sokolov (1903-?). Of the many artists who contributed to the TASS Windows collective, the Kukryniksi were among the better known, and quite prolific. (More on TASS Windows and the TASS Windows Collective in this essay. The first four graphic images below were created by the Kukryniksi. |
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THE KUKRYNIKS, or KUKRYNIKSI We will relentlessly smash and crush the enemy!
1941 Created in response to Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. This event broke the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, and drew the Russians into the war on the Allied side. |
We fight tooth and nail in battle -- who could fight the fascists harder than we, the descendants of Chapayev and Suvorov! 1941
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One "Good" Turn
Deserves Another! 1941 Hats off you swine, shouted fascist to peasant one day, forcing him to kneel. Off with your head, shouted the partisan to the Nazi, one night, lifting his sword to kill. | Three years of the war
1944 -- a reproduction poster of one of the very rare TASS Windows. Columbia University Library has 45 of the Moscow collective's original works in its collection. |
| The poster works of Victor Koretsky (1909-1998) and Victor (Deni) Denisov (1893-1946), like the Kukryniksi, bolstered Russian morale. | |
VICTOR DENI (DENISOV) Each strike of your hammer hits the enemy!
1941 |
The steel broom of the Red Army has swept away all the varmints!
1945 |
VICTOR KORETSKY Our forces are infinite! (Our strengths are uncountable!)
1941 |
Red Army man, come to the rescue! 1942 |
ALEXEI KOKOREKIN (1906-1959) Smash the Fascist Abomination!
1941 |
VICTOR SLYSHCHENKO (1905 - ?) Defend the City of Lenin!
1942? |
VLADOMIR SEROV (1919-1968) Our cause is just, we will win.
1941 |
IOSIF SEREBRIANY (1907-1979)
Come on, lend a hand! 1944 |
IRAKLY TOIDZE (1902-1985) Rescue Europe from the fetters of fascist enslavement!
1941 |
artist unknown Defend our beloved Moscow!
1941 |
ALEXEI PAKHOMOV (1900-1973) Young men and women of the city of Lenin! Master industrial skills! By exemplary discipline and heroic work help the front!
1941 |
ANATOLY VASILYEV (1910-1967)
Under the banner of Lenin we will march to complete victory! 1944 |
Related sites: Museum of Russian posters an extensive collection of graphic materials from the late 19th century to the present, searchable chronologically by artist and subject, with historic background information as well.
Windows on the War -- Soviet TASS posters at home and abroad, The Art Institute of Chicago July 31-October 23, 2011. Power to the People: Early Soviet propaganda posters, an exhibition and essay of the so-called ROSTA Windows, from the time of the October Revolution. The TASS Windows during World War II are 'descendants' of these earlier forms of communicating breaking news. related reading: Historical introduction to the Soviet posters from the Great Patriotic War 1941-5 by Professor D.W. Spring, for Adam Matthew Publications Making Hitler Look Silly: Cartoons and Posters by the Soviet Artists Kukryniksi, London: Soviet War News, 1945 |