
Vintage “Soviet Santa” Postcards Were Propaganda for the Space Race (2018) - lermontov
https://hyperallergic.com/476788/vintage-soviet-santa-postcards-were-propaganda-for-the-space-race/
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deanCommie
As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union/Russia, this brings back a TON of
nostalgic memories. The entire aesthetic is triggering (in a positive way)

I don't take a jaded approach to the idea that there is an intersection
between my childhood innocence and state propaganda. Plenty of North American
traditions I see my wife and friends feeling nostalgia for are also based on
church or state "ideals" that become beloved traditions over time.

You only call the Soviet ones "propaganda" because the USSR was the enemy.

~~~
tlogan
It is called propaganda because it is advertising which is paid and sponsored
by the state. Also propaganda does not try to encourage the sale of a product,
service or idea. Propaganda is not bad per see (like in this case - it is
actually very nice).

And also this is not "Santa" \- it is Дед Мороз (father frost).

~~~
zzzcpan
If you want to think of propaganda in terms of advertising, it's sort of
judgement advertising. Doesn't really matter who pays for it. The purpose is
to not let people make their own judgements on certain things. While the
purpose of advertising products is to inform public about existence of
products. Using propaganda in advertisement is usually illegal too.

~~~
lsc
>the purpose of advertising products is to inform public about existence of
products.

Really? It's not like any of us don't know of the existence of Coca-Cola; I
think that the vast majority of advertising we encounter on a daily basis is
for products we know about already (even though this is probably less true now
than it was towards the beginning of my life.)

> Using propaganda in advertisement is usually illegal too.

citation?

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kstenerud
So does that mean that these are also propaganda?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/First_ma...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/First_man_on_the_moon.jpg)

[http://cconnect.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/...](http://cconnect.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/2011-Topps-American-Pie-Base-Card-First-American-in-
Space.jpg)

[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-
AD398_VISUAL_G...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-
AD398_VISUAL_G_20110701032530.jpg)

Is celebrating your achievements propaganda?

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myth_drannon
Any art form that was created by the Soviet artists will be considered
propaganda since it was state sanctioned. And they were pretty vocal and
straightforward about that, art was to educate the people. In US, art many
times is just away to make money. But I actually prefer the propaganda art. My
favorite propaganda movies are by Tarkovsky - Mirror and Stalker....

~~~
StavrosK
> Any art form that was created by the Soviet artists will be considered
> propaganda since it was state sanctioned

How does this follow? Are US Army ads propaganda? How about NASA posters?
Agricultural statistics leaflets?

What do you call media that uses manipulative language to stir popular feeling
through appeals to emotion that was privately funded?

Nowhere in the dictionary does it say it's propaganda iff it's state-
sanctioned: [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/propaganda](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/propaganda)

~~~
Shivetya
Well there was America's Army[1], a video developed for the US Army. There are
a whole series of these games and if they are not propaganda I don't know what
is.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Army)

~~~
StavrosK
I'm not asking if the US army has ever produced propaganda. I'm asking if
_everything_ it produces is propaganda.

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StavrosK
If NASA put out these postcards, we'd call them "marketing". Why is everything
Russian "propaganda"?

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intopieces
Propaganda is meant to convey or reinforce an ideology. Since, at this time in
history, there was a real “hearts and minds” battle between East and West,
these kinds of campaigns can safely be considered propaganda. Similar
postcards made by NASA at this time would certainly be propaganda as well.

A similar example in the West today is those ads for the US Army they
sometimes show before movies.

~~~
fouc
JFK's famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech would be propaganda also.

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mc32
It's interesting that their Santa looks a lot like the US/UK version of Santa
designed by Nast, later popularized by the Coca-Cola Co.[1], and not a
continental Santa.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_suit)

~~~
js8
It is supposed to be
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ded_Moroz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ded_Moroz),
not Santa. (The article somewhat implies that Ded Moroz was a communist
invention based on Santa Claus, but in fact this is not true.) And you can see
even in the postcards and the article that he doesn't necessarily has a red
dress, although I suspect (maybe some Russian can clarify) that the red dress
is the influence of the West.

~~~
aasasd
Russian Wikipedia says Ded Moroz is a merger of earlier folk and literary
characters in Pagan-like tradition, with Saint Nicholas who was imported in
the mid- to late 19th century.

E.g. this card is Saint Nicholas from sometime before the 1917 revolution:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ded_Moroz_Snegurochk...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ded_Moroz_Snegurochka_Christmas_card.jpg)

while this is an interpretation of the old Moroz character in traditional
garb, by Victor Vasnetsov:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B4_%...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B4_%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B7.jpg)

White coat seems to be more in line with the tradition, but frankly I dunno if
Ded got much of graphic development before Nick swooped in, as he seems to be
more of a figure of fairy tales and some literature.

It's left to dig up why the card above depicts a Nicholas of Nast's design.

~~~
cat199
> Saint Nicholas who was imported in the mid- to late 19th century.

St. Nicholas is a hugely popular patron saint in the orthodox church, he was
not imported from the west. The average person there probably knows more about
actual Nicholas from history than many elsewhere.

One of the things Nicholas is famous for is punching a heretic and by this and
associated actions resolving the huge theological controversy of Arianism and
resulting in the nicene creed used directly or as a basis for most other
creeds in other forms of christianity (see also great schism & filioque).
Incidentally Arianism has a resurgence in some strands of protestantism, which
of course, speaking of propaganda, is more prevalent in countries favoring the
historically devoid Macy's Red Reindeer 'Santa Claus'..

Here is an article with many russian faithful including Putin venerating a rib
bone of st nicholas:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40062807](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40062807)

But yes, this does have little to do with the red 'miracle on 34th street'
shopping and reindeer st nicholas, and that is probably an import, true

more about actual nicholas from a russian-ish source:

[https://russian-crafts.com/russian-saints-icons/st-
nicholas....](https://russian-crafts.com/russian-saints-icons/st-
nicholas.html)

~~~
aasasd
From what I gathered, Orthodox Nicholas didn't have the habit of giving gifts
to kids, which is what the folks sought to borrow from Europe.

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pgtan
Not even a single Снегурочка on this cards? No concept of women in the bright
space future!?

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opencl
There aren't any on this page but the Soviets definitely had space
posters/postcards with women too. Especially since the first woman cosmonaut
predated the first woman astronaut by 20 years.

Example:
[https://66.media.tumblr.com/cb254106ab11f89194fc172c1948f897...](https://66.media.tumblr.com/cb254106ab11f89194fc172c1948f897/tumblr_mq9sdu6BeH1sq5s0qo1_640.jpg)

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boomboomsubban
There's an exhibit at The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis about Winter
Holidays in Russia that highlights both the state and the church's
celebrations from about 1900-1970. Though celebrations started coming back in
1935, they displayed contemporary newspapers showing how the state truly
embraced it to help with the hardships during WWII. It was a great exhibition,
I went a few years ago but it seems to be running again if anyone is
interested.

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throw2016
I love these vintage posters and artwork. In current times they are less
propaganda and beautifully capture the essence of a certain time and culture.
They are equally interesting posters this side of the 50s onwards that could
be looked on as propaganda but also again capture an essence.

Communism was a response to the incomplete transformation from feudalism to
democracy, for history buffs its easy to understand its context and its
incredible that something so radical and egalitarian in its objectives was
actually put into practice, that this was even possible in a time filled with
feudal instincts, interests and attitudes itself is astonishing. The rest is
history.

Future generations can learn from the multi dimensional failure in practice
and learn to recognize how the significant gaps between ideals and reality
came into being and use the same understanding to also recognize the
significant gaps between our ideals and reality of current power structures
and how the world works and is. That is our propaganda.

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UncleSlacky
Lots more of this kind of thing here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SPACECOMMUNISM](https://www.reddit.com/r/SPACECOMMUNISM)

