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2025. Vol.10. №1.

Images of peasants in the cheap popular prints of the World War I

May 20 2025

Mikhalenko N.V. Images of peasants in the cheap popular prints of the World War I // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 70-76.

EDN: IEGIBS

Annotation

Propaganda cheap popular prints of the World War I were designed to raise the patriotic spirit of the defenders of the Fatherland, to praise the ingenuity, bravery and resourcefulness of both soldiers and people in the rear, to create an image of the weak and harmless enemy. One of the symbols of the people’s war in both military pictures of the 19th century and in popular prints of the 20th century was the peasant, most often in a red shirt, fighting an enemy with agricultural implements or with bare hands. The bravura signature and visual means of popular prints — the coloristic and dynamic juxtaposition of the hero and enemies, the contrast in size of figures — emphasized the power and strength of the peasant. The image of the peasant woman in a sarafan at war was intended to show the unity of the people fighting the enemy and to emphasize the strong character of the Russian woman. Popular prints of the World War I took many images and plot moves from the pictures of the Patriotic War of 1812; since in the early 20th century, in the artistic environment, interest in folklore and folk art was very high, satirical popular prints became a kind of synthetic genre that absorbed traditional content in new verbal and visual forms.

Keywords

Peasants, World War I, Patriotic War of 1812, collection of D. A. Rovinsky, folk pictures, “Today’s Lubok”, V. V. Mayakovsky, K. S. Malevich.

About the author

Mikhalenko Natalia V., PhD (Philology), Senior Researcher, А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Povarskaya St., 25a, Moscow, 121069, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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Additional Info

2021. Vol.6. №4.

Utopian idea in the Russian literature of the 1920s–1930s (The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia by A. V. Chayanov in the context of the era)

Jan 12 2022

Mikhalenko N. V. Utopian idea in the Russian literature of the 1920s–1930s (The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia by A. V. Chayanov in the context of the era) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №4. P. 6-20.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-4-6-20

Annotation

Alexander Chayanov’s book The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia is deeply rooted in the late 19th—early 20th century’s literary and philosophical ideas. His utopia was influenced not only by the futuristic projects of William Morris, Thomas Moore, Edward Bellamy and other authors mentioned in the book, but also by the ideas interpreted in the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Kirillov, Evgeny Zamyatin, Andrei Platonov, and others. The picture of the peasant paradise presented by Chayanov’s economic ideas is similar to the dreams of the neo-peasant poets about an ‘izba paradise’ (izba—a traditional Russian farmstead), preservation of traditional values and folk culture. Technological achievements are described in the works of Mayakovsky and Zamyatin, and Chayanov’s utopia adds the ability to control meteorological processes. The writers’ reflections on the future man were influenced by their interpretation of future theurgic ambitions and their possible results (artificial selection, strict regulation of many spheres of life, compulsory realization of gifts and talents, separation or even extermination of dissenters, etc.). The futurologist ideas about the development of society, science, art and culture, implemented in different art forms, were tested to check the man’s ability to identify the limits of his power over his own nature while not attempting to suppress or change according to the challenges of technology.

Keywords

Utopia, utopian idea in the Russian literature of the 1920s–1930s, Alexander Chayanov, Alexander Bogdanov, Sergey Esenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Andrei Platonov, Evgeny Zamyatin.

About the author

Mikhalenko Natalia V., PhD (Philology), Senior Researcher, А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St. 25а, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 


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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal

Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)

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