Godless Utopia

Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda

Roland Elliott Brown, FUEL, Damon Murray , Stephen Sorrell

$49.99

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Fuel
15 December 2019

Graphic design; History

The first book to tell the visual story of the USSR's war against religion of all denominations, from the 1917 revolution to its fall in 1991

'We've finished the earthly tsars and we're coming for the heavenly ones!'. Thus spoke the Soviet Union's first atheist propagandists as they declared war on 'the opium of the people' across the USSR.

Soviet atheism is the great lost subject of the 20th century. Pope Pius XI led a 'crusade of prayer' against it. George Orwell satirised it in Animal Farm. The Nazis called it a Jewish plot. Franklin D Roosevelt pressured Stalin to abandon it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn blamed it for Russia's catastrophes. Ronald Reagan put it at the core of his 'Evil Empire' speech. And yet, because the Soviet Union promoted atheism almost entirely for domestic consumption, decades' worth of arcane and astonishing antireligious imagery remains unknown in the West.

Drawing on the early Soviet atheist magazines Godless and Godless at the Machine, and post-war posters by Communist Party publishers, Roland Elliott Brown presents an unsettling tour of atheist ideology in the USSR. Here are uncanny, imaginative and downright blasphemous visions from the very guts of the Soviet atheist apparatus: sinister priests rub shoulders with cross-bearing colonial torturers, greedy mullahs, a cyclopean Jehovah, and a crypto-fascist Jesus; Russian cosmonauts mock God from space while vigilant border guards nab American Bible smugglers.

Godless Utopia is the occult grimoire of a lost socialist anti-theology.

By: Roland Elliott Brown, FUEL
Foreword by: Martin Rowson
Edited by: Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell
Imprint: Fuel
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 200mm, Width: 160mm,
Weight: 560g
ISBN: 9780995745575
ISBN 10: 0995745579
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 15 December 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Roland Elliott Brown is a London-based journalist and arts writer haunted by echoes of 20th century ideologies. He has reported from Iran for Foreign Policy and has written extensively about history, politics and human rights struggles in the Islamic Republic. His writings on books and imagery - usually connected with Russia and Iran - have appeared in the Spectator and the Guardian. Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell have been publishing books on Soviet culture since 2004, from the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia to Soviet Bus Stops.

Reviews for Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda

Roland Elliott Brown explains how Lenin set the groundwork to overthrow the Soviet Union's religious institutions -- and how a raft of brightly coloured propaganda posters became the leader's weapon of choice.--Calvert Journal Since the Soviet Union's promotion of atheism was almost entirely targeted at those living within it, the posters, editorial illustrations, and other propaganda associated with it are largely unknown to Western designers.--Emily Gosling AIGA Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda' collects the most striking examples of the form.--Cory Doctorow Boing Boing In the Soviet Union, atheism became government policy, enforced by the state and encouraged by anti-religious posters and magazines. These have been collected in Roland Elliott Brown's [Godless Utopia].--Guardian Blasphemous shock and awe were a major part of the Bolshevik aesthetic, as seen in the covers of Godless magazine.--Rolland Elliot Brown Spectator UK Students of Russian history will welcome the publication of Godless Utopia this month, but so too will art historians, religious scholars, as well as observers of Russia's cultural history and indeed anyone who has embarked on the quixotic search for the elusive Russian soul.--Jennifer Eremeeva Moscow Times