Images of America in early soviet picturebooks by Marshak and Lebedev

Abstract

An examination of visual culture evident in three early Soviet picturebooks, “The Adventures of Scare-Crow” (“Prikliucheniia Chuch-lo”,1922) by Vladimir Lebedev and “Circus” (“Tsirk”, 1925) and “Mister Twister” (“Mister Twister”, 1933) by Samuil Marshak and Vladimir Lebedev, reveals evolving and contradictory images of America. A word and image perspective on these picturebooks exposes a variety of influences, aesthetics, and ideologies that include both old visions of the West and new views of the United States of America increasingly colored by revolutionary ideology. The interplay of image and text displays the cultural attraction of America,first in older images of the frontier and wilderness of the West, then in the appeal of American culture in the 1920s, and finally as an ideological counterpoint in the 1930s.

Keywords: America, picturebooks, Vladimir Lebedev, Samuil Marshak, ideology, propaganda, racism, circus, cultural critique, nation, other, Soviet Union.