ROSTA Windows

ROSTA Posters (also known as ROSTA Windows, Russian: Окна РОСТА) were a propagandistic medium of communication used in the Soviet Union to communicate important messages and instill specific beliefs and ideology within the minds of the masses.

Propaganda posters were among the most significant tools for influencing public opinion in the Soviet Union.

The text that accompanied each poster was a clear and explicit message for the public, while the use of specific techniques (photo manipulation, deformity, and amplification) would indirectly and subconsciously transmit a message in favor of or against an opinion, a person or a political choice.

The Soviet Union gave rise to the “Russian avant-garde” modern art movement. Alongside the stirring socio-economic developments of the early twentieth century, artists seemed to reject the past and seek innovative forms of expression in various types of art. These posters are prime examples of art movements like Constructivism, Suprematism and, later, Socialist Realism, a fertile meeting place between art and ideology.

Rosta posters (also known as Rosta windows or satirical Rosta windows, due to the fact that Rosta posters were most often displayed in the windows of storefronts in the Soviet Union) were stencil-replicated propaganda posters created by artists and poets within the Rosta system, under the supervision of the Chief Committee of Political Education during 1919-21. Inheriting the Russian design traditions of lubok and rayok, the main topics were current political events. They were usually displayed in windows, hence the name.

Rosta Posters got their name as a result of the medium through which they communicated, posters, and the main producer of these posters: the Russian Telegraph Agency (abbreviated as ROSTA). When these two elements are combined, the name generated is Rosta posters.

The first Rosta poster was created in Moscow by Mikhail Cheremnykh (1890-1962). He was soon joined by Vladimir Mayakovsky, a popular and prolific author, Dmitry Moor (1883-1946), Amshey Nurenberg (1887-1979), Alexander Rodchenko, Mikhail Volpin and others. Similar projects were performed in other Soviet cities. Cheremnykh and Mayakovsky, for example, produced a poster in 1921 satirising a French delegation led by Joseph Noulens.

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Wikipedia