The books will showcase the best paintings and sculptures of the period and present rarely seen gems from provincial museums and museums of former Soviet republics. Each book opens with an expert article on the subject. Images are organised in chronological order, displaying a wide variety of artistic styles from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism to Socialist Realism, Severe Style and Neorealism.

The books will showcase the best paintings and sculptures of the period and present rarely seen gems from provincial museums and museums of former Soviet republics. Each book opens with an expert article on the subject. Images are organised in chronological order, displaying a wide variety of artistic styles from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism to Socialist Realism, Severe Style and Neorealism.

The collection of Russian paintings at the State Hermitage contains around 3,000 items. Over a half of them are portraits, which provide priceless iconographic material for historians. The portraits represent a wide thematic range - from images of Tsars and Grand Dukes to those of military, civil and cultural figures, members of the clergy, aristocrats, country gentlemen and merchants. The chronological scope of the collection largely lies between the 18th and the early 20th century. The portraits of this period kept at the Department of the History of Russian Culture are extremely diverse and reflect nearly all the major Russian artistic trends. The Hermitage possesses works by major Russian masters of the 19th century, as well as paintings by less well-known artists, which serve to complete the picture of Russian artistic life of the time. The permanent exhibitions "Russian Art and Culture of the First Half of the 18th Century" and "Russian Art and Culture of the Second Half of the 18th Century", housed in the halls of the Winter Palace, display the masterpieces of 18th-century art. The Hermitage collection is adequately represented by the canvases by Andrei Matveyev, Ivan Nikitin, Louis Caravaque, Ivan Vishnyakov, Ivan Argunov, Alexei Antropov, Feodor Rokotov, Dmitry Levitsky, Vladimir Borovikovsky. Many works by these masters in the Hermitage collection have become textbook examples of 18th-century Russian art.

The industrial revolution in the Soviet Union meant immeasurably more than the mere construction of a network of factories. In many ways, it determined the fate of the country and each of its citizens. The popularity of heroic workers was rivaled only by that of movie stars. Masses of people left their homes to build new gigantic factories. Millions labored in mines and built dams. Naturally, Soviet art could not ignore the theme of industry. Poets composed odes to construction sites, literature gained the new genre of the "industrial novel," and words like "Stakhanovite" (a worker who produces fantastically large yields), "socialist com­petition" and "truant" took firm places in the language. Artists made panoramas of workshops, foundries and factories, and painted portraits of shock workers. Newspapers and magazines constantly printed reports of masters of photographs of the sites where Socialism was being built. Temporal distance now allows us to speak of "industrial realism" - a unique phenomenon in Soviet painting and photography and the subject of this book.

A bizarrely funny, nostalgic collection of images of life under the Soviet Union - from the Instagram and Twitter accounts that have amassed a following of more than 1 million. Welcome to the USSR. Marvel at the wonders of the space race! Delight in the many fine delicacies of food and drink! Revel in the fine opportunities for work and play! Soviet Visuals invites you back in time into the strangely captivating world of the Soviet Union-through a unique collection of photography, architecture, propaganda art, advertising, design, and culture from behind the Iron Culture that will fascinate, amuse, and maybe even teach a thing or two.

A bizarrely funny, nostalgic collection of images of life under the Soviet Union - from the Instagram and Twitter accounts that have amassed a following of more than 1 million. Welcome to the USSR. Marvel at the wonders of the space race! Delight in the many fine delicacies of food and drink! Revel in the fine opportunities for work and play! Soviet Visuals invites you back in time into the strangely captivating world of the Soviet Union-through a unique collection of photography, architecture, propaganda art, advertising, design, and culture from behind the Iron Culture that will fascinate, amuse, and maybe even teach a thing or two.

A bizarrely funny, nostalgic collection of images of life under the Soviet Union - from the Instagram and Twitter accounts that have amassed a following of more than 1 million. Welcome to the USSR. Marvel at the wonders of the space race! Delight in the many fine delicacies of food and drink! Revel in the fine opportunities for work and play! Soviet Visuals invites you back in time into the strangely captivating world of the Soviet Union-through a unique collection of photography, architecture, propaganda art, advertising, design, and culture from behind the Iron Culture that will fascinate, amuse, and maybe even teach a thing or two.

Originally published in the UK as "Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union," this book "illuminated the surprising world of Russia's unofficial artists, who [led] a semi-undergroung existence, unable to exhibit much of their work. Unwilling to adhere to the only acceptable doctrine in Soviet Russia, Socialist Realism, these artists [were] regarded as subversive and subjected to a wide range of repressive measures...[this] is a major document because of its revelation of important contemporary art virtually unknown in the West." Includes brief bios of the artists, manifestoes, and more

Originally published in the UK as "Unofficial Art from the Soviet Union," this book "illuminated the surprising world of Russia's unofficial artists, who [led] a semi-undergroung existence, unable to exhibit much of their work. Unwilling to adhere to the only acceptable doctrine in Soviet Russia, Socialist Realism, these artists [were] regarded as subversive and subjected to a wide range of repressive measures...[this] is a major document because of its revelation of important contemporary art virtually unknown in the West." Includes brief bios of the artists, manifestoes, and more

Suppressed by the KGB, Life and Fate is a rich and vivid account of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union. . .On its completion in 1960, Life and Fate was suppressed by the KGB. Twenty years later, the novel was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm. At the centre of this epic novel looms the battle of Stalingrad. Within a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war, Grossman’s characters must work out their destinies. Chief among these are the members of the Shaposhnikov family – Lyudmila, a mother destroyed by grief for her dead son; Viktor, her scientist-husband who falls victim to anti-semitism; and Yevgenia, forced to choose between her love for the courageous tank-commander Novikov and her duty to her former husband. Life and Fate is one of the great Russian novels of the 20th century, and the richest and most vivid account there is of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.

Suppressed by the KGB, Life and Fate is a rich and vivid account of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union. . .On its completion in 1960, Life and Fate was suppressed by the KGB. Twenty years later, the novel was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm. At the centre of this epic novel looms the battle of Stalingrad. Within a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war, Grossman’s characters must work out their destinies. Chief among these are the members of the Shaposhnikov family – Lyudmila, a mother destroyed by grief for her dead son; Viktor, her scientist-husband who falls victim to anti-semitism; and Yevgenia, forced to choose between her love for the courageous tank-commander Novikov and her duty to her former husband. Life and Fate is one of the great Russian novels of the 20th century, and the richest and most vivid account there is of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.

At the intersection of the visual, graphic, and cinematic arts, film posters are a unique and thrilling record of a particular cultural Zeitgeist. This book brings together 250 posters from the Soviet Union of the 1920s and early 1930s to explore the energy and invention of this period, before Soviet Realism became the official art doctrine. Drawn from the private collection of connoisseur Susan Pack, the selection includes the work of 27 different artists. From bold figuration to architectural elements, each artist displays a distinct style and aesthetic, as much as they collectively eschew the glamour of Hollywood for more stark, striking, even challenging images, often marked by unusual angles, dynamic compositions, and startling close-ups.

This anthology presents a new generation of authors from various parts of Russia who never lived in the Soviet Union and therefore free of the Soviet legacy. Theirs is a fundamentally new way of thinking and seeing the world. These voices from the future deserve your attention. Compiled by Olga Slavnikova

Alexey Titarenko created the series of collages and photomontages that became Nomenklatura of Signs from 1986-1991, under the strict Soviet rule. This new publication presents the series in its entirety for the first time. Working in secret, Titarenko conceived the project as a way to translate the visual reality of Soviet life into a language that expressed its absurdity, in a hierarchy of symbols that, together, formed a nomenclature - or, in Russian, nomenklatura, a term for the system by which government posts were filled in the Soviet Union. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and other artists of the early 20th century Russian avant-garde, Titarenko captures an uncanny, darkly comic world in which language is controlled and subverted much like the Newspeak of George Orwell's novel 1984. The book includes an introduction by writer Jean-Jacques Mari and art historian Gabriel Bauret, as well as a critical interpretation of the series by art historian Ksenia Nouril. The book is designed by Kelly Doe Studio, NYC.

An unforgettable journey through the former Soviet Republics, by a prizewinning author of international reportage Erika Fatland takes the reader on a journey that is unknown to even the most seasoned globetrotter. The five former Soviet Republics' Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all became independent when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages Erika Fatland meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Menonites that found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels, she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours. In these countries, that used to be the furthest border of the Soviet Union, life follows another pace of time. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika Fatland moves with her openness towards the people and the landscapes around her. A rare and unforgettable travelogue.

Russian Revolutionary Posters tells the story of the development of the Soviet poster, from the revolutionary period through to the death of Stalin, revealing the way in which tumultuous events within the Soviet Union were matched by equally dramatic shifts in graphic art and design. Written and designed by David King, one of the world's foremost experts on Soviet art and himself an internationally acclaimed graphic designer, the publication features posters drawn from his unparalleled collection, well known to visitors to Tate Modern in London. The book is arranged chronologically. Captions accompany each poster, explaining the historical and artistic context in which it was produced. Constructivist posters, socialist advertising, film posters of the 1920s, classic photomontage, the heroic posters of the Great Patriotic War, biting political satire and the cult of personality of the Stalin years are all here. The great names of Soviet poster design, including Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitsky, Gustav Klutsis, Dimitri Moor, Viktor Demi and Nina Vatolina, all feature. However, some of the most arresting posters reproduced were created anonymously or by scarcely known artists whose work will be a revelation to many. King takes us behind the scenes, explaining the process involved in the commissioning of the posters and the key figures who coordinated poster campaigns, providing personal histories of the art directors and creative directors whose vision played such a vital role in soviet poster design. With an insightful introduction and over 165 images, some of which have never been seen before, this beautifully produced book will be the definitive survey of the subject for many years to come.