Soviet Posters from Sergo Gregorian Posters Collection (1918-1921): Political Ideology and Historical Analysis

This paper focuses on the visual practices in which recruited, assigned and interpreted the ideological narration for the construction of socialism.The researching material consists of (4) four post-revolutionary Soviet posters (1918-1921) from the Sergo Gregorian posters collection. The semiotic approach is used in order to analyse the posters as political signs. Each poster is a product of the ideology on a denotative and connotative level of the sign. The methodology used is the «grammar» of visual design suggested by Kress and Van Leeuwen. The theoretical model supporting this analysis is Burke's taxinomy, who approaches the images as forms of historical evidence. Furthermore, we analyze poster captions following Halliday's verbal actions. The sample analysis based on the visual approach of the titles, the modality, the metonyms, and the narrative patterns. We attempt to show up the ideological public speech of Soviet posters in the early "existing socialism" when the initiators were making a breakthrough in economic, political and social infrastructure. The purpose of this research is to study the visual practices and to explore the ways in which past and present are engaged and interpreted in the formation of the ideological narrative for the construction of the new Homo Sovieticus, as it is recorded in the specific post-revolutionary Soviet posters (1918-1921).