Russian Empire Culture

At various points in history, strange things have taken place in the history of Russia. It has seen numerous regimes and bloodthirsty controllers - culture displays that. In the end, culture really gives us a picture of the kinds of thoughts and ideas which took root at humanity's core. The USSR and its art and culture was a good example of this. It is evident that fear played a large part in getting the Communist regime to the status it held for so long.

The truth of the matter is that Russia has always been oppressed. Freedom did manage to triumph in the end, but Russia's political climate was different then. We have evidence of this oppression that people had to face. In the corrupt leaders of Communism we can see this.

The culture of the time, in the form of art and music, shows us this resilience held by the people. These works of art are certainly controlled by outside forces and dominant factors, but they do carry strange senses of foreboding. The Russian people have long faced terrible oppressors and in their art, that is reflected.

In fact, this carried over even into the art which was produced specifically for the Russian empire and Communist regime's leaders. Many posters and propaganda images were put out to spread the ideas of Communism, and these posters are somewhat surreal but all carry an interesting and heavy message. They were intended to influence how people thought about things - and specifically, Communism.

Many times the Communist leaders are portrayed as heroic figures in these posters, even though in reality they were corrupt political leaders who used violence and terror to get what they wanted. Things could be portrayed much different in posters, and the leaders of the party knew of the power of art and visual images to shape peoples' ideas.

Finally we must see the Russian empire's culture as it really was: a time when the USSR and its Communist party were dominant and yet art could still thrive under these conditions. Communism changed the world, but even in chaos, art persisted.

Certainly this is one reason for which people who collect Russian art now have this passion. Modern collectors do display some of these posters very often in their home or work collections. The Communist period shows us that the frightening USSR regime was a bizarre time, but that history survives no matter what. This is our great gift as humans.

Even so we must treat this period with care, as it was a time of death and terror and sadness. We must mourn for what was lost, but cannot discount the greatness of the artists who came in this time and continued to produce works of art to show us what humanity is capable of, for both terror and for greatness. We can never lose our vigilance of this fact. USSR posters and these reminders of Russian empire culture show us this.