"Chtenie odna iz obyazannostei cheloveka (Reading is one of a Person's Duties)"

Ivanov, Sergei I.

Ivanov, Sergei I. (illus.)

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Petrograd: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, (1920). Framed poster measuring 19 inches by 26 inches. This two-color lithograph was printed in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) by the Petrograd State Publishing House and shows a man and a woman reading books while a hammer rests against the man's leg and more books lay in a pile at their feet. The accompanying text declares, in Cyrillic, "Reading is one of a Person's Duties." Starting in 1919, the Soviet government began a campaign to eradicate illiteracy by mandating compulsory education for children and enrolling illiterate adults in special literacy schools. Part of this new policy included issuing propagandistic posters linking literacy to one's duty as a Communist and positioning knowledge as the key to greater production. This poster, showing the tools of production next to books, was in close alignment with this new campaign. Writing in pencil and ink to upper margin of poster, otherwise fine in wooden frame measuring 23 1/2 by 30 inches. (Item ID: 24201)

(White, The Bolshevik Poster, pp. 104-105, 108, plate 5.36)