Academy of Arts of the USSR. Members appointed by the Communist Party, established in 1947.
Agitprop. Agitation and propaganda, positive term akin to “enlightenment.” The Agitprop Department at the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party was responsible for cultural affairs, including the visual arts.
AKhR. Association of Artists of the Revolution, name as from 1928 of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR), founded in 1922. Merged with the regional bodies (e.g. MOSSKh) of the Artists’ Union in 1932.
Comintern. Communist International. Founded in Moscow to promote the spread of worldwide communism, existed 1919–1943.
Committee for Arts Affairs. State body founded in 1936. Its Khudfond section took over responsibility for kontraktatsiia from VseKoKhudozhnik.
Cult product(ion).This book’s collective designation for (the making of) Stalin portraits, posters, drawings, statues, busts, films, plays, poems, and songs.
d. delo (file) (archive).
f. fond (collection) (archive).
g. god (year).
GlavIskusstvo. Narkompros division engaged in financing visual arts production, founded in 1928.
Glavlit. Main censorship agency responsible mostly for texts and visual products, founded in 1922.
Great Break. Period of forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, 1928–1932. Taken from Stalin’s November 1929 Pravda article “Year of the Great Break: On the Twelfth Anniversary of the October Revolution.”
Gulag. Literally Main Administration for Corrective Labor Camps, figuratively the Soviet system of prisons and forced labor.
GTG. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
GUM. Main State Department Store, Moscow.
Ikonografiia. Iconography or sum of canonical visual representations of Stalin. The term was stripped of its Russian Orthodox religious connotations and no longer signified icon painting.
IMEL. Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, archive of papers of key Marxists and institute for Party ideology.
Iskusstvo. Visual Arts Publishing House.
Iskusstvo. Highbrow thick journal for the visual arts, launched in 1933.
Izo. Visual Arts Department of Narkompros. The main distributor of limited state resources for painters during the 1920s.
IZOGIZ. Visual Arts Publishing House. Subordinate to GlavIskusstvo.
Izokombinat. Visual art factory, responsible for the industrial production of Stalin statues, busts, portraits, etc. Visual art factories were first established in the 1930s.
Khudfond. Art Fund, part of Committee for Arts Affairs, founded in 1936. Took over responsibility for kontraktatsiia from VseKoKhudozhnik.
Khudsovet. Art soviet. Jury-like collective body for judging art in various organizations.
Kniga otzyvov. Visitors’ comment book at exhibitions.
Kolkhoz. Collective farm.
Komsomol. Communist Youth League.
Kontraktatsiia. System of commissioning and paying for visual art.
Kruzhok, kruzhki. Intelligentsia circle(s) of students, artists, Bolsheviks, etc.
Kulak. Rich peasant.
l., ll. list, listy (folio, folios) (archive).
Lenin Museum. Moscow museum of the life and work of Lenin that also housed Stalin art.
LOSSKh. Leningrad Section of the Union of Soviet Artists, subsumed under unified Artists’ Union in 1957.
Lubok. Popular print. Cheap print medium in prerevolutionary Russia.
Maslovka. Artist housing and studio complex on Upper Maslovka Street in Northern Moscow, opened in 1930.
M Br I. I. Brodsky Apartment Museum, Scientific Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg (archive).
MOSSKh. Moscow Section of the Union of Soviet Artists, founded in 1932, renamed Moscow Union of Soviet Artists (MSSKh) in 1938, subsumed under unified Artists’ Union in 1957.
Mossovet. Moscow City Soviet.
Museum of the Revolution. Moscow museum, housed Stalin art.
Narkompros. People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment, in charge of education and culture.
Naturshchik. Sitter for portraits, substituting for the actual person.
NEP. New Economic Policy, 1921–1928. Period of partial return to a market economy following the Civil War; often used as a general term for the period in Soviet history between the Civil War and the Great Break.
NKVD. People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, name of the ministry in charge, among other areas, of the Soviet secret police, 1934–1946; often used as a general name for the secret police.
ob. oborot (verso) (archive).
Oblast. Administrative unit roughly equivalent to a province.
Obraz(y). Stock image(s) for portraying Stalin, e.g. “father of peoples,” “generalissimo” or “coryphaeus of science.” The term was stripped of its Russian Orthodox religious connotations.
Old Bolshevik. Person who had been a member of the Bolshevik Party before the October Revolution.
op. opis’ (inventory) (archive).
OR GTG. Manuscript Division, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (archive).
OSt. Society of Easel Painters, nonfigurative artist movement, 1925–1931.
Palace of Soviets. Tall building in central Moscow for which Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer was destroyed. Never built.
Peredvizhniki. Wanderers, a group of prerevolutionary realist artists named after the itinerant exhibitions around which they coalesced in the 1870s. They existed until 1923, when they joined AKhRR.
Politburo. Governing body, part of the Central Committee.
Proletkult. Proletarian Culture movement (founded on 20 January 1918 and subsumed in the Party in November 1922).
Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. Moscow museum housing Western art.
RABIS. Union of Art Workers. Disbursed “soft benefits,” such as vacations.
Repin Institute. Renamed Leningrad Academy of Arts (founded in 1932, renamed in 1944). Included art university (Art VUZ), art history institute, museum, library, and laboratories. Subsumed under the USSR Academy of Arts in 1947.
RGALI. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow (archive).
RGANI. Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, Moscow (archive).
RGASPI. Russian State Archive for Social and Political History, Moscow (archive).
ROSTA. Russian Telegraph Agency. News agency of the RSFSR, 1918–1935. Responsible for “ROSTA Windows” posters.
RSDRP. Russian Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party.
RSFSR. Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
Russian Museum. Leningrad art museum.
RVSR. Also Revvoensovet. Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Supreme military authority, 1918–1934. Headed by Voroshilov 1925–1934.
Secretariat. Stalin’s main office, as part of his General Secretary post of the Bolshevik Party. Formally a special section of the Central Committee, de facto one of the most powerful institutions in the USSR.
Shtiglits Art College. Leningrad institution of undergraduate art education.
Sovetskoe Iskusstvo. Culture newspaper for visual artists. Appeared twice a week for most of its existence from 1931 onward.
Sovnarkom. Council of People’s Commissars. Governing body.
Stakhanovism. Productivity-raising measures to overfulfill the plan, implemented in 1935, named after a coal miner. Closely linked with shock work and socialist competition.
Stroganov Art College. Moscow institution of undergraduate art education.
Surikov Institute. Moscow Art Institute (renamed as such in 1948, opened in 1936 as the Moscow Institute of Visual Art and called the Moscow State Art Institute 1940–1948).
TASS. Soviet News agency.
Thick journal. Journal dealing with political, social, and cultural affairs—“thick” in the sense of “lengthy.” Such journals have been an important intellectual forum for Russian intelligentsia since the nineteenth century.
TsDRI. Central House of Art Workers, Moscow. A club-like establishment for members of the artistic intelligentsia, especially artists and actors.
TsIK. Central Executive Committee. Highest governing body of Soviet state (not Party), 1922–1938.
TsK VKP(b). Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.
Tvorchestvo. Visual arts thick journal, more heavily illustrated than Iskusstvo and geared toward a wider artist audience, including amateur painters. Launched in 1933.
VKP(b). All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Name of the Soviet Communist Party 1925–1952.
Vozhd’, vozhdi. Leader(s), a term reminiscent of the Italian Duce or the German Führer. Applied not just to Stalin, but also to other high-ranking Bolsheviks.
VseKoKhudozhnik. All-Russian Cooperative Comradeship “Artist.” Subordinate to GlavIskusstvo.