Brutal Bloc Postcards

Soviet era postcards from the Eastern Bloc

FUEL, Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell , Jonathan Meades

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Hardback

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English

Fuel
01 September 2018

Photographs: collections; History of architecture; History; Marxism & Communism

A collection of previously unpublished postcards from the former

Eastern Bloc - sinister, funny, poignant and surreal, they depict the

social and architectural values of the period.

Brutal concrete hotels, futurist TV towers, heroic worker statues - this collection

of Soviet era postcards documents the uncompromising landscape of the Eastern

Bloc through its buildings and monuments. They are interspersed with quotes from

prominent figures of the time, that both support and confound the ideologies

presented in the images.

In contrast to the photographs of a ruined and abandoned Soviet empire we are

accustomed to seeing today, the scenes depicted here publicise the bright future of

communism: social housing blocks, Palaces of Culture and monuments to Comradeship.

Dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, they offer a nostalgic yet revealing insight into

social and architectural values of the time, acting as a window through which we can

examine cars, people, and of course, buildings. These postcards, sanctioned by the

authorities, intended to show the world what living in communism looked like.

Instead, this postcard propaganda inadvertently communicates other messages:

outside the House of Political Enlightenment in Yerevan, the flowerbed reads 'Glory to

the Communist Party of the Soviet Union'; in Novopolotsk, art school pupils paint plein

air, their subject is a housing estate; at the Irkutsk Polytechnic Institute students stroll

past a five metre tall concrete hammer and sickle.

By: FUEL, Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell
Foreword by: Jonathan Meades
Imprint: Fuel
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 160mm, Width: 200mm,
Weight: 600g
ISBN: 9780995745520
ISBN 10: 0995745528
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 01 September 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for Brutal Bloc Postcards: Soviet era postcards from the Eastern Bloc

In rather stark contrast to the documentation of Soviet architecture commonly showcased today, this surreal collection of images consists of scenes depicting what was considered the bright future of Communism.--Milly Burroughs AnOther Magazine