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The cult of Stalin reached its height in the years described by Chukovskaya in Sofia Petrovna. Displayed below are various images of Stalin, as benevolent and caring leader - and as monumental figure atop a mammoth"Palace of the Soviets," which was to tower above the Moscow skyline. the building was never built; the church destroyed in order to begin building has now been restored (Cathedral of the Savior - shown on the right below).
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from Victoria Bonnell, Iconography of power : Soviet political posters under Lenin and Stalin: University of California Press, 1997 "On the joyous day of liberation from the yoke of German invaders, the first words of unlimited gratitude and love of the Soviet people were directed at our friend and father Comrade STALIN - the organizer of our battle for the freedom and independence of our motherland." |
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front page of the newspaper Labor[Trud], Dec. 30, 1936. "The whole country exalts, laughs, and gleams with merriment/because children live joyfully/the country is marvelous for them/and each hour, whether study or leisure/has become unusually joyful/because, for us children/our great Stalin is our best friend." from Jeffrey Brooks, Thank you , Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War, Princeton U. Press, 2000, p. 70. |
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"Whenever she tried to visualize the prison and Kolya in prison, she invariably thought of the picture of Princess Tarakanova: a dark wall, a girl with disheveled hair pressing up against the wall, water rising on the floor, and rats...but a Soviet prison, of course, was not like that at all." (Sofia Petrovna, p. 61) |
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Konstantin Flavitsky, The Princess Tarakanova, 1864 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) |
