Sample (Soviet) Citations

Image One: "Workers use old-fashioned brooms to gather grain into a large pile for cleaning." Kazhakstan, circa 1950. Photograph.

"Workers use old-fashioned brooms to gather grain into a large pile for cleaning." Marxist Internet Archive. "History Archive." Ed. Brian Basgen. 2001. 20 February 2008. <http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/art/photography/farming/index.htm>.

[headnote (200 words) goes here].

Image Two: Vladimir Malagis. Steel Workers. 1950. Oil on Canvas. 162 cm x 200 cm.

Malagis, Vladimir. Steel Workers. The Marxist Internet Archive. "Painting with the Hand and Eye of Marxism" Ed. Brian Bagsen. 2007. 20 February 2008. <http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/index.htm>.

This painting reveals that socialist realism, the official aesthetic of the communist part, is surprisingly not like a photograph. Socialist Realism was founded in part by Maxim Gorky, who began his work as an abstract expressionist (Yedlin 26). In this image, the most prominant feature is the smoke from the steel factory. The workers, immersed and enveloped in this smoke are also somewhat obscured by it. Yet this image, a prototype of socialist realism, offers some insight into what constituted this seemingly straightforward (and yet far too strict) aesthetic sensibility. Since the workers can hardly be seen as individual figures, emphasis is immediately placed upon the imposing environment of the workplace. One of the central efforts of the Soviet regime during the late 40's and early 50's was to deal with the growing disillusionment of the ideal worker and the failure of many communist ideals. Socialist Realism remained as one of the few channels for promoting such values. Without idealizing labor, Malagis manages nonetheless to depict the human strength necessary to overcome such conditions. This combination of the banal and "beautiful" is perhaps one of socialist realism's defining features--the creation of "poetical and at the same time mundane" art ("Soviet Painting" 1).

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ESSAY:

• single space captions (so that they can fit on one page)
• include alphabetized works cited page at end (for all works used in all 5 images, not separate works cited pages)
• on the introductory page, please include the references to the HCC reader pages. the easiest format for this would be to make a "List of Images," something like the list of illustrations at the beginning of a book, or a table of contexts. It might look like this (this is a sample):

List of Images

Hannah Hoch. "Untitled." Insert above "Beyond the Bauhaus, painters..." HCC Reader, page 41.

Bertolt Brecht. Kuhle Wampe (film still). Insert after "probed for disturbing truths behind the surface appearances of reality." HCC Reader, page 41.

"Kristallnacht." (photograph). Insert above the paragraph which mentions the "Jewish Problem" and "Night of Broken Glass," HCC Reader, page 87.

....and so on...