The human body is the focus of power practices. Pierre Bourdieu writes that the body is implemented political mythology that has been incorporated and become a permanent disposition (Bourdieu 1990, 69–70). 1 Posture and gestures are the result of a value system. Materiality of the body can be rethought as power’s most productive effect, as Judith Butler has claimed (1993, 2). Hierarchy and dichotomy of gender, class, race, health, and age find their expression in embodiment. Therefore, the body lies at the center of political struggle.
By analyzing body images, it is also possible to understand the preferences of a particular historical period. This study focuses on photos of the Soviet leaders in magazines during the Cold War, addressing their normativity in representations by the mass media. That point helps us to define the ideological priorities of the Soviet culture and the norms of the society from another perspective, to mark the changes that occurred in the USSR during the Cold War.
The visual rhetoric of these photos, the context of their emergence, and the photographic techniques used to create them are considered as one of the manifestations of power (in the understanding of Foucault). The body of the ruler is not just a physical body, but primarily it is a political body. 2 The leader is the embodiment of the nation, he or she is its sign, and that makes these images so important. This essay looks at how a particular physical body was transformed into a political body to become a representation of power.
One of the objectives of my research has been to analyze how the leader of the state appeared in the press, how these images changed throughout the Cold War period, and what range of power representations were valid. Although the images were studied through the beginning of the Cold War period until its end, the research focused on the 1960s, noting the changes in the corporeal representation that came about during this period. 3 The time of Khrushchev’s rule from 1953 to 1964 is also known as the “Thaw,” a revolutionary time that among other things had changed the practices of the body and the ways of its representation. These details are compared with the practices of photographed leaders from Stalin’s time and after the Thaw, against which background the changes become apparent.
Alexei Yurchak in his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, a seminal work in the field of Soviet studies, considers late socialism as one period that spanned approximately thirty years, between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s (Yurchak 2005, 4). 4 He argues that the performative shift of authoritative discourse occurred after the death of Stalin, who stood outside of it, making editorial comments about it from an external position (Yurchak 2005, 13). In a new model of late socialism, the external position was no longer available and that resulted in the transformation of the structure of all types of Soviet discourse. Subsequently that transformation became the reason for internal normalization: “The normalized and fixed structures of this discourse became increasingly frozen and were replicated from one context to the next practically intact. This process of replication took place at the level of texts, the visual discourse of ideology (posters, films, monuments, architecture), ritualistic discourse (meetings, reports, institutional practice, celebrations), and in many centralized ‘formal structures’ of everyday practice” (Yurchak 2005, 26).
Nevertheless in this article, I argue that we have to distinguish Khrushchev’s Thaw and what is referred to as Brezhnev’s “Stagnation” (the time that began with Brezhnev’s rule and continued after it until Perestroika) as fundamentally different periods, because they produced dissimilar forms of representations and effects, when speaking about the visual aspect of power’s personification. Yurchak’s arguments are valid in relation to the Brezhnev period, but we cannot speak about such standardization of images, including processes of replication and imitation, during Khrushchev’s era. On the contrary, as we will see later, with the Thaw, there occured a break with the old visual canon, which was replaced with the relative diversity of images of the leader.
My research pays attention to the role of the media during the Cold War period. Power, politics, and the media are inseparably linked in the creation of the “true values” for the masses, including a representation of the body.
Photography had a special role in representations of Soviet power. 5 This medium had to certify a historical fact, to indicate success of socialist construction, to convince people to embrace communism. Nevertheless, the use of photography as a propaganda tool had been changing throughout the Soviet period. Bold experiments of the 1920s—with their emphasis on sharp angles and the technique of photomontage—were replaced with cautious handling of images, out of fear of losing control over information during the Stalin period, which led to the retouching of photos and to the imitation of painting in general. In turn, the democratization of Khrushchev’s image was closely related to new technological advancements in photography, the dissemination of amateurs’ practice, and an extended arsenal of pictorial means.
For resources, this essay draws upon popular Soviet magazines such as Sovetskoe Photo (Soviet Photo), Ogoniok (Little Flame), Krestyanka (Countrywoman), Rabotnica (Workwoman), Sovetskaja zhenshina (Soviet Woman), Sovetskij Sojuz (Soviet Union), Fizkultura i sport (Physical Culture and Sports), and Zdorovie (The Health Magazine). These periodicals are not only the most representative for my purposes due to their large distribution and their propaganda function, but also they are important because together they offer a large variety of contexts in which images of politicians appeared.
Social norms in photography could be defined through the choice of plot, character, and composition. Representation of body is studied through the depiction of subjects within pictures, in which authorities and heroes of a country appear (character, event, scene, environ). In my study, I took note of the context in which an image was published (e.g., the type of magazine, the accompanying text), the choice of the genre (staged photography, reportage, official portrait), the artistic methods (composition, framing decisions), and the sets of photographic codes (camera angle, distance from the subject) that allow us to see how the image was constructed. The presence of certain iconographic schemes and types of poses (formal or candid) are also examined.
The “Warm” Power
Changes in the ideological regime during the Thaw had affected essentially different levels of politics, including the representation of power. The changes are evident if we compare the pictures of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev.
Photos from Stalin’s funeral published in Ogoniok open this visual sequence. Two powers were present: the old one, dead and, therefore, even more sacred, and the new one represented within a group of Soviet top officials, respectfully following the coffin. Khrushchev did not stand out here. He was among others and equal to them, positioned in a line situated on the mausoleum.
This emphasis on the “horizontal” in the visual representation of power remained during the first years after Stalin’s death, when there was talk about “collective leadership” of the country.
However, a hierarchy was visible even in this “linear” representation within the photo of Stalin’s funeral. According to L. A. Openkin (1991, 45–46), the disposition of power was displayed in the photo taken on 6 March 1953, 6 where standing next to the deceased was Stalin’s last favorite, Georgy Malenkov, and then Lavrentiy Beria, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich, and Vyacheslav Molotov lined up next to him. The relation among these figures is reminiscent of the collage of the Stalin era—and the body of the leader in the picture occupies as much space as all the members of the government put together.
Paintings and photographs before the Thaw dealt primarily with the ideal body of the leader they depicted, transforming physical features into exemplary traits. For example, Lenin’s peaked cap allied him with the working class, his bald head conveyed brainpower, and his gesture pointed toward the radiant future; his image was identified with granite and steel (Goscilo 2006, 261, 263). Contrariwise, photography during the Thaw did not seek to embellish the image of the leader; it didn’t avoid showing the head of state’s ordinary physical features. Clothes are one of the most important aspects in the representation of politicians, and they became more informal during the Thaw. A perfect body, which was characteristic in portrayals of kings, monarchs, revolutionary leaders, and the founding fathers of nations, had left the political scene. The First Secretary of the Communist Party was now represented as an ordinary human, in his usual worldly incarnation. While the images of Lenin and Stalin were timeless (“He is always with us” and “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live”), a figure of Khrushchev was rooted in the present. If Lenin’s expression “was serious, determined, thoughtful, or slightly ironic, but never jovial” (Bonnell 1997, 153), Khrushchev allowed himself to laugh, to smile broadly, and in every way to show his emotions.
Compared to the austere, frozen photo-portraits of Stalin, which amounted to only a few (Turovskaya 2006, 250), images of power during the Thaw came across more informally. The image of the power became prosaic and every day. Periodicals did not gloss over the image of the head of the state, did not hide his average physical features.
Images of Stalin were glorified due to the angle of the composition and lighting, but portraits of Khrushchev were deprived of such treatment and represented the plain countenance of a Soviet bureaucrat. His clothing emphasized the ordinariness of his look: a jacket and tie replaced the military uniform of the Generalissimo. Corporeal norms of the Stalin period demanded a dignified image: the deified leader ought not to wave his hands or smile broadly.
There were not many illustrations in the Soviet press during Stalin’s years due to his order for publishers not to waste newspaper space. In addition, it was an unwritten rule that the photo was clearly inferior to hand-drawn pictures. Preference was given to portraits of the leader that were painted. It was understood that Stalin’s portrait had to be painted even for press usage. Because of the particularity of the painted media, the artist has more control over the final result than when using photography, which allows for a certain amount of unpredictability. It was believed that photography at worst imparts the typical.
Therefore, in the Stalin period, a snapshot was auxiliary material for the artist. If it was printed, then it was covered with a layer of retouch that made it similar to the picture. It is significant that the number of paintings and drawings of Stalin published in the journal Soviet Union after his death outweighs that of photographs. Photography had to imitate the fine arts in order to neutralize the danger of transferring uncontrolled, candid information. For these purposes soft-focus optics were used, as well as enlargement of the frame, which helped to achieve grain, and offset printing to “soften” a snapshot. Hand-coloring of photographs also was used.
By the 1960s, photos of top leaders were distributed widely in the media. This was due to the development of photography itself and to the general turn of culture toward visuality. The sixties rehabilitated the status of the photo; priorities were changed.
Images of power in the 1960s were linked to the tools of communication and information. In his pictures, Nikita Khrushchev was reading newspapers, talking on the phone, standing next to cameras. He was at the epicenter of press attention. His image was reproduced by newspapers and magazines countless times.
In magazine photographs of Khrushchev congratulating the first cosmonauts, we see the head of state not only hugging them in a “fatherly” way but also, on another occasion, talking to them on the phone. Here, Khrushchev’s telephone handset and wire represented the physical contact with the cosmonauts and also demonstrated the continuity of the connection of Soviet power with the people. Generally speaking, technical equipment, in addition to progressive Soviet science, played an important role in the representation of familial relations between the cosmonauts and the Soviet government and the people (Schwartz 2008, 171–177). Technological developments and space flights became powerful symbols of the success of the socialist system around which the people could rally. The symbolic act of “connecting” and building family relationships could be read in these photos as an effort by Soviet leaders to unite their people and confirm their power.
In the 1960s, photography was promoted as a modern technological medium and was used to propagandize the success of Soviet science (Reid 1994, 33). 7 The introduction of new technologies also changed bodily representation. The body seemed to become more perfect due to scientific developments. Technical progress gave birth to a new soviet body. Even babies were represented in safety glasses, basking in the rays of the sun quartz.
More often, Khrushchev and leadership were portrayed in motion—during discussions with citizens on the street, or in a racing car. Movement became a sign of the Thaw. Static images were now avoided in power representations. Soviet Photo printed a picture by Dmitry Baltermants (1962a, 16) in which Khrushchev was shown as a passerby at the Kremlin, lost among ordinary Soviet citizens. Images of power became workaday, every day. The authorities seemed to become invisible as they imitated ordinary people, except when they appeared on the platform of the mausoleum or on the stage at meetings of the Communist Party Congress.
Such fluid movement differed greatly from the canonized poses of the Stalin era. Strict poses and an absence of lively gestures had to do with the desire to control the body, which is also a source of information and means of nonverbal communication. Since the second half of the 1950s, however, the camera started to record emotional and seemingly spontaneous gestures of the leader. Khrushchev was often shown shrugging and waving, frequently situated in the midst of lively interaction—an applauding audience, a welcome show of hands. He was spreading his hands, clenching his fists, pointing a finger—the embodiment of power, Khrushchev participated in the constant dynamics. His movements were even reproduced one frame at a time in quick succession—each one capturing any change in facial expression or gesture; any small movement became essential. “Warmth,” “sincerity,” “passion”—such were the epithets journalists used in their captions to characterize what was being communicated in the picture. A great deal of emotion and energy were conveyed in the pages of Soviet Photo, because journalists found more freedom of expression in artistic renderings.
Khrushchev was often presented laughing or smiling widely in images produced during the Thaw. Generally, the smile became a corporeal sign of a new era. It brought with it more emotional intensity compared to the staid images of leaders from the early 1950s. Khrushchev and the cosmonauts, who were favorite heroes of the Thaw, smiled most of all. Khrushchev and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin were the central figures. Many similarities can be found in their images: emotion (facial expressions, gestures), openness (expressing itself in smiles and hugs), naturalness, and ease of behavior. One and the other became symbols of the struggle for peace. They were often portrayed with the representatives of the oppressed peoples. But their relationships were hierarchical, lined up in a father-son model.
The individuality of each person’s body and the attention to the “expressive” body parts (the head, face, eyes) increased during the Thaw. The image of arms held out to greet people or to shake hands played an important role in the frame of a photo. It became a leitmotif of power in the sixties.
Such fragmentation of the body, where its parts become self-sufficient, tells about the change of the classical paradigm, a redefinition of the subject-object dichotomy, the birth of new strategies for human representation.
Khrushchev’s photos were copiously published in periodicals. He was often surrounded by people—party members, workers. Reportage shots of Khrushchev’s meetings with the people became widespread at that time. Unlike Stalin, who held a very central position in the frame, Khrushchev was often presented laterally in images. Surrounded by workers, he was at about the same level with them, not towering over the group. Photographers often used wide-angle shots to depict the party’s governance, and caught not only the leader but also his entourage. In this way, the image of power also became “democratized.”
Hugs and Kisses: Sensualization of Power
Corporeal confirmation of their declared ideas was important for the authorities during the Thaw. A hug and a kiss became a manifestation, which represented fondness for fellow citizens, or compassion toward the downtrodden people of Africa, or, in the case of the cosmonauts and other heroes, gratitude for a fulfilled mission. Thus, in the pictures of the Thaw a kiss and a hug assumed the meaning of a political act. Their significance changed with context, depending on when or where the action took place—during an official meeting or a more casual encounter.
“The era of kisses” didn’t begin with Leonid Brezhnev, as many think, but rather during the Thaw. Then the authorities resorted to emotional expression, to a warm gesture or to physical contact, whether it was a handshake or a hug. Expression of power involved contact with bodies, it became sensual and tactile. Hugs were the norm among leaders at official meetings as evidence of a trusting relationship, but they also extended to Khrushchev’s encounters with ordinary people. Orientation toward sincerity at the time demanded confirmation of feelings with appropriate gestures.
Khrushchev and his entourage confirmed agreements and cemented their friendship with numerous hugs and kisses. These photographed hugs, together with their expressive captions, became the norm for visual and verbal expression. In the photo titled Fatherly Hug, Khrushchev embraced the first cosmonauts—Yuri Gagarin and German Titov, who in turn are shown in the photo Star Brothers throwing themselves into each other’s arms, as well as family and friends (Joy of the Meeting). It is noteworthy that the titles of the pictures refer to family relations. 8 They connote personal warmth while at the same time reinforcing the idea of hierarchy.
For example, hugs and kisses given by the head of the country were declared as “fatherly.” In the caption to the photo Fatherly Hug, where the leader kisses cosmonaut Titov, there is a statement by Khrushchev: “Let me once again hug and kiss you as a faithful, glorious son of our country, our Leninist Party” (Smetanin 1961, 2–3). A collection of photos depicting the cosmonauts is accompanied by equally expressive words: “Nikita Khrushchev, in a fatherly way, sincerely met Yuri Gagarin at the airport and in a triple Russian kiss expressed all the fullness of love and respect of the people and the Communist Party to a person who had committed an unprecedented act of bravery. Exciting moments from the meeting of Khrushchev and Yuri Gagarin were captured by many photographers” (Ryabchikov 1961, 5).
“Parental” discourse was reproduced also in direct speech by Valentina Tereshkova—the first woman ever to fly in space—at a press conference, where she refers to her “space brother” and the “fatherlike” care of Khrushchev: “My flight has shown that the female body bears space conditions not worse than men’s.… I did not have a sense of fear, especially since I worried a lot at first for my space brother Valery Bykovsky.… It’s hard to convey what I felt during the conversation with Nikita Khrushchev. He gave me fatherly and warm wishes for a happy flight and landing” (Tereshkova 1963, 8–9). Later, a photo of Khrushchev with Tereshkova and her new husband, fellow-cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev (taken by Vasily Peskov [1964, front cover] and titled “Good Luck and Happiness to the Discoverers of Stellar Roads!”), also demonstrated “family ties” between the leader and Soviet cosmonauts. While raising his glass to the health of the newlyweds, Khrushchev was standing next to the bride and groom in the place normally occupied by parents on such occasions. In this case, a “parental” relationship was more than a metaphor in that the marriage was actually imposed from above.
Situations where love or marriage received blessing through the intervention of higher authorities had long been a familiar trope in Stalinist cinema (Borisova 2008, 42). The photo in this case reproduced for the audience a familiar story. A kiss and a hug in the Soviet photography of the fifties and sixties belonged to public space and often happened in front of witnesses. They were framed with people around, ordinary citizens or top party officials. People were referents of an event, verifying and controlling it.
A photo by L. Velikzhanin (1961, back cover) from the Moscow Film Festival, where Gina Lollobrigida kissed Gagarin in public, was printed on the cover of Soviet Photo. Assessment of others is important here. The people looking on in the photo respond with approval, admiration, and understanding.
The Thaw cultivated a sensual approach to the world. The display of hugs and kisses, together with either the permissibility or forbiddance of these actions depending on their context, created a sexual tension that attracted attention. But mostly, the media used these images to describe social relations in the Soviet Union as closely knit.
Hugs also expressed political support for particular nations. Khrushchev with emphatic enthusiasm embraced Fidel Castro in front of cameras, and was shown holding a Burmese girl and a Russian boy in a photo entitled “Good Hands” (Lebedev 1964, 24–25). Good will toward oppressed African people was expressed with a welcoming gesture whereby Khrushchev embraced black students. Khrushchev had been advocating the return to a “peace offensive,” and the Sixth World Youth Festival in 1957, an outgrowth of this policy, had far-reaching domestic consequences (Zubok 2007, 174). Although many nations participated at the Sixth Youth festival, photographers gave special attention to guests from Africa. This was in part a gesture of solidarity toward their countries in the fight against Western colonialism.
Corporeal images tell us about the cultural policies of the period. Khrushchev’s emotional gestures—as caught on film—created a code for representing the body. They determined what was permissible. Multiplied in numerous prints, repeated in various publications, they became visual clichés of the era. Photos of Khrushchev and cosmonauts, perhaps the most iconic of the era in that they embodied significant historical episodes, formed the collective memory of the Soviet people.
Conceptions of corporeal norm during the Thaw had changed not only as a result of new aesthetic preferences and the impact of foreign art and press, but also due to the expansion of the media—in terms of the amount of news it could report and the number of images it could produce, as well as the emergence of new forms of media. Altogether, this led to the erosion of old standards and formed the canon of the Thaw.
Power for Export: Extrapolation of the Family Model
Stalin’s iconography visually embodied the metaphor “father of the nations.” This was achieved by making him appear larger than life and by showing him with children. One approach to Stalin’s magnification was to show his figure against a background of people and things made to look much smaller in contrast to him. This distorted perspective was widely used in Soviet posters but it also made its way into photos. Only a few people had the honor of being photographed with Stalin. Children were one exception and served the symbolic function of looking up to him as paternal guardian of the nations.
Stalin from the very beginning of his rise to cult hero was portrayed only with girls. The presence of girls emphasized the inaccessibility of the leader: the differences of sex and age expressed the distance between him and others (Plamper 2010, 110). Widely known are his pictures with the little Buryat girl Gelya Markizova in his arms. In another variation of this theme, Stalin appeared with the Tajik girl Mamlakat Nahangova. She was a schoolgirl who exceeded the quota for cotton-picking, and for that Stalin, in 1935, personally presented to her an award. Even after the leader’s death, a photo of Mamlakat with Stalin was published, in 1954, in the magazine Soviet Union (Shakhovskoy 1953, 8). In this old photo, he is sitting at a table and writing, and the girl has put her hand on his shoulder (there is another version where he has his arms around her shoulders). The magazine tells about the life of an adult Mamlakat, shown with family in her apartment, in which the memorable photograph from 1935 holds a place of honor and testifies to the importance she placed on meeting Stalin.
During the Thaw, other strategies of paternalistic representation of power emerged. From 1955 onward, there were large numbers of photographs in which Soviet leaders were portrayed alongside people of other races and nations during official visits. Reports on Asia and Africa focused on exotic images. Experiencing different cultures and even appearing in local costumes to audiences around the world, the Soviet officials claimed kinship with these people.
For an example, a photo essay documenting a Soviet visit to India in 1956 shows the people of Srinagar showering Khrushchev and Bulganin—who were already given colorful garlands to wear—with flowers as the two leaders drove by (Baltermants 1956, 8–9). Another photograph captured Khrushchev with Indian children, where he was holding hands and offering the traditional Indian greeting namaste.
These photos represented Khrushchev as a “father of the nations,” as a “friend” and a “brother,” thereby claiming family relations between peoples. This was a way to demonstrate the international nature of Soviet power and the positive impact of “parental” tutelage of Soviet leaders on different nations. 9 This indulgence in the form of “Helping Hands” placed the friendly image of the Other within a hierarchy topped by the Soviet Union and ensured the cultural hegemony of the socialist society.
We can trace the efforts to distance the Soviet Union from the evils of Western colonialism in photos depicting Khrushchev’s official meetings with black leaders. The earliest pictures of Khrushchev with black delegates had a formal look. But increasingly, photojournalists captured a more joyful Khrushchev, who decided to “bury colonialism” and began to greet Africans with greater warmth than he did any other delegations.
As an art publication, Soviet Photo allowed itself to focus on capturing more of the emotional elements of political life. Solidarity with the oppressed African people was expressed in Khrushchev’s welcoming gesture caught in a picture by Sergey Smirnov (1961, 2–3). Here, Khrushchev is hugging two black men dressed in white robes. All three are smiling happily. The composition of the frame is based on a comparison of black and white, and Khrushchev occupies the central position here.
The Thaw celebrated the friendly Other seen in the faces of people from Africa. Pictures of black fighters and black students appeared regularly in the Soviet press during this time, whereas before such images were published only sporadically. The figure of the black man became shrouded in a romantic aura during Khrushchev’s tenure. In photos, Africans served as evidence of friendship among peoples and of the Soviet regime’s humanity. They mainly occupied the role of a student, as in the picture where a Soviet man in a white shirt teaches an African wearing a Pioneer tie (which was part of a school uniform). Representation of people of the Third World in magazines during the Thaw usually conveyed a patronizing attitude toward them.
The contrast of black and white is perhaps most strikingly evident in the work of Dmitry Baltermants’s Near Lenin (1962b, front cover), in which a black boy is looking up at the white statue of the leader. Power occupies a privileged position, towering above the rest, and chooses white as its symbolic color.
It can’t be said that Brezhnev was often photographed with children, but the pictures published in the seventies in Ogoniok are significant examples of the continuation of the existing paternalistic tradition. In one photo, he is holding a girl in his arms, with his mouth slightly open for a kiss. This image was taken by photographer Ognian Yuskesiliev (1973) in Bulgaria and is one of the few expressive shots of Brezhnev published in the Soviet press. In another case, he is shown wearing a straw hat with Cuban schoolgirls and Fidel Castro on the cover (Musaelyan and Sobolev 1974b). During his trip to America, Brezhnev was also captured with American children in a picture taken in San Clemente, shaking hands with girls (Musaelyan and Sobolev 1973c). All of these pictures focused the viewer’s attention on the emotional gestures of the Soviet leader and demonstrated paternal participation in the destinies of people throughout the world.
The Soviet “Luster”
Any leader personifies the masses, lends them his name, his face, and his active will. Power has the capacity for mimicry; it reflects the hopes and aspirations of the masses, recognizing themselves in the leader. The photos taken during the visit of Khrushchev to the United States, in 1959, emphasized the democratic character of the Soviet premier in that he appears as an approachable person who can relate to everyday citizens.
Wherever he went, Khrushchev conveyed a casual image of power through which people recognized themselves. The readers of Soviet magazines saw a live person with his own unique features, such as a bald head and bulging belly. Futhermore, these features were often emphasized, as in a photo by Andrei Novikov (1959, 2), where Khrushchev and President Dwight Eisenhower were filmed in such perspective that their bald heads were shown in profile, one above the other. Thus an analogy of two politicians was constructed on a visual level to show the friendly character of the meeting.
In addition to these signs of “commonness,” Soviet leaders of the 1960s appeared in “high society” environments during their trips abroad. This is noticeable in the pictures taken during official ceremonies while Nikita Khrushchev was visiting America. Here, Soviet power was portrayed for the first time in the unusual context of the formal state reception. The Soviet delegation usually attended such events in everyday dress, as in 1955 at a reception honoring Konrad Adenauer in Moscow. The refined clothing required for state receptions, however, seemed to Khrushchev unsuitable for representing the socialist state of workers. Khrushchev was still afraid that he looked funny wearing a tuxedo at these events, once remarking that even penguins look more elegant (Schattenberg 2009).
Khrushchev and Eisenhower were photographed together with their spouses during a dinner at the Soviet Embassy. Ceremonial dress code—evening dress for the First Lady of the United States, and bowtie for the president—placed Soviet attendees in a new context of high-society life. Such events also drew attention to the leaders’ spouses: in photos from the embassy dinner, Khrushchev walks hand in hand in pictures with Mrs. Eisenhower, and the American president is accompanied by Nina Khrushcheva. Family ties also emerge as an important theme: a picture of Khrushchev with Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York, in which they are talking to each other in a lively manner, appeared in the Soviet Union. Along with the men were pictured the Soviet leader’s family—his wife Nina Petrovna, daughter Rada, and son Sergei—and the Soviet Ambassador to the United States Mikhail Menshikov.
The Thaw had also changed the role of the Soviet Union’s First Lady. 10 Nina Khrushcheva, who accompanied her husband on high-ranking foreign trips, occupied a special place in relation to the higher echelons of power. For the first time, a wife of a Soviet leader was presented in pictures of official visits to heads of state. Khrushcheva was captured with her husband in a meeting with the President and Mrs. Eisenhower, and with Charles de Gaulle and Yvonne de Gaulle at the Élysée Palace. In several pictures, Nina Khrushcheva was even shown alone, without her husband. She was giving interviews to American journalists, shaking hands with children, talking with Chairman of the U.N. General Assembly Victor Belaúnde, communicating with young Frenchmen. Through these pictures, power acquired its feminine hypostasis. On the other hand, they emphasized the role of women in the Soviet Union and the importance of family ties.
Several photos taken in social settings were also published during Brezhnev’s visit to America. The Soviet leader is standing with Richard Nixon and his wife, who is wearing an evening dress. In another shot, he is talking with pianist Van Cliburn (Smirnov 1973a). In both of these photos, Brezhnev was dressed in a jacket decorated with medals, which emphasized his different status. Here can be seen the legacy of the Stalin era, when the leader was represented in a military uniform. On the other hand, the very appearance of Khrushchev and Brezhnev in an elegant social context was a new step in Soviet power’s representation.
Mission of Peace: Summit Meetings
“The meeting was held in a friendly, warm atmosphere,” “Friendship visit,” “In the name of humanity,” “Mission of peace and friendship”—such were the headlines and captions under the photos of summits during Brezhnev’s tenure. For the most part, these were very static images, not characterized by emotional gestures and lively facial expressions or by interesting compositional techniques.
The era of Stagnation spoke about itself in a language of shackled poses. Smiles and gestures rarely enlivened these scant images. However, the picture had to give witness to a dialogue taking place in the frame and that was demonstrated primarily through a handshake but also in the form of a negotiating table, which was a space of peace and mutual understanding.
The handshake here acts as a sign testifying to trusted relationship, as the declaration of friendship, confirming the “peaceful course” of the Soviet leadership. This becomes the leitmotif of Soviet photojournalism in the representation of international relations, and was most often used in setting up meetings with the leaders of socialist countries, whether these were the first Secretary of the PUWP (Polish United Workers’ Party) Edward Gierek or the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED Central Committee) Erich Honecker, or general secretary of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. 11
Brezhnev, wearing a garland of flowers, is shaking hands with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during his visit to India on the cover of Ogoniok (Musaelyan and Sobolev 1973a). This dynamic picture is accompanied by the title Mission of Peace and a quotation by L. I. Brezhnev: “The friendship of the great peoples of the Soviet Union and India has considerable importance for peace and security in Asia and around the world.” In another photo, this time on the cover of Ogoniok (Musaelyan and Sobolev 1974a), he is firmly shaking hands with Fidel Castro. The fact that this scene was captured within a larger image showing the leaders surrounded by press photographers was likely intended to convey that their meeting constituted a major media event, and to emphasize the popularity of the leaders and their governments.
In addition to a handshake, other gestures of solidarity were practiced during Brezhnev’s time in office. For example, during the meeting of the Mongolian-Soviet Friendship in Ulaanbaatar, members of the Soviet government headed by Brezhnev and Mongolian comrades raised their hands and pressed them together (Koshevoy 1966). This gesture can be seen in other images of meetings between the Soviet leadership and the heads of friendly countries, as is the case with Gustav Husak or Fidel Castro. Bodily contact designates here support and unity, an attempt to visualize the collective and socialist body. Brezhnev’s welcoming gestures and lively facial expressions often appear in photographs of his meetings with political allies.
Photos of the Soviet government sitting at the negotiating table and discussing topical issues with foreign delegations were widespread during this period. This became a conventional form of representation of international relations, a way to show cooperation or readiness for it.
In this, the form could be applied to almost all visits of foreign leaders, whether it was the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Schmidt, President of the Republic of India Neelam Sanjeev Reddy, President of Czechoslovakia Gustav Husak, President of CPP Nicolae Ceausescu, President of the State Council of the GDR Erich Honecker, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People’s Party, Chairman of the Presidium of the State Great Khural Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, and British Labor Party leader Michael Foot.
Pictures of summits were not marked by diversity during the Brezhnev era. The visual canon was finally formed in the late Brezhnev period and fit into the following uncomplicated scheme, which was reproduced each time with slight variations in Ogoniok: Brezhnev at the airport with a group of comrades, posing with a high-ranking guest, seated at the negotiation table, and signing contracts.
Photos of foreign visits of the Soviet government had a similar configuration. The photo report on the visit of Brezhnev to the United States included the following scenes: farewell at the Vnukovo airport (more than twenty people along with the Secretary General are standing in a row); the official welcoming ceremony at the White House, where Brezhnev is speaking from the podium; Brezhnev sitting together with Nixon; Brezhnev and Nixon walking past the guard of honor (Musaelyan et al. 1973). On the magazine cover, Brezhnev is shown stretching his hand in salute alongside Richard Nixon on the balcony of the White House (Musaelyan and Sobolev 1973b). In the next issue of Ogoniok were photos of Brezhnev and Nixon signing the Soviet-American agreement on the prevention of nuclear war. Gestures and smiles characterized the American president, while the general secretary showed a minimum of expression. Most of the pictures focused on the official chronicle, and the reportage shots were almost missed. A rare exception was a smiling Brezhnev during a meeting with ordinary Americans who were holding out their arms to him (Smirnov 1973b; Musaelyan and Sobolev 1973c).
The lack of emotion in these published photos does not signify their absence in the Soviet leader’s reality. There are numerous photos of the visit, where Brezhnev waves his hands or appears in comical poses, sometimes with ridiculous facial expressions, but they were not published in the Soviet press. The choice indicates certain cultural and ideological preferences, in which the era of Stagnation manifested itself.
The most expressive pictures were published in Soviet Photo, where several pages had been devoted to visits of Brezhnev to the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States, and France. The magazine commented that these visits had fundamental importance: “They signify a turn from the era of the ‘Cold War’ to an era of cooperation, to détente, to the establishment of mutual trust between states” (Kolesov 1973). According to the author of the text, reporters have successfully coped with the task of documenting these events and that these photos will go down in history, especially the picture of Brezhnev with ordinary Americans.
Kremlin “Iconostasis”: From Stagnation to Perestroika
At the beginning of his rule, Brezhnev was portrayed mainly among a number of party comrades. In these pictures, he is standing in the mausoleum or at meetings with foreign delegations alongside with others. In general, the theme of the collective governance for many years determined the way Soviet power was presented. Participatory decision-making was emphasized by shots of a crowded conference hall in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, which was often shown from the top. Applauding delegates denoted unanimity of choice, agreement with senior management decisions. The visual rhetoric of these photographs tried to distance themselves from the images of the leader typical of Stalin’s time, while proclaiming “Leninist principles of collective leadership.”
Brezhnev took pride of first place in the list of official portraits of members of the government, but nevertheless he was among others. The first Kremlin “iconostasis” was already published in Khrushchev’s period, but only in Brezhnev’s era did it become a common form of representation of power. The infinite number of members of the Politburo was a visual sign of the Stagnation period. These portraits of the Soviet leadership could occupy up to six pages in a magazine.
Only portraits of general secretary of the CPSU could compete with this. Brezhnev was everywhere: applauding from the tribune, shaking hands with the workers, signing agreements at the negotiating table, receiving awards, welcoming people at the mausoleum. Party comrades were also in pictures, but no one stood out from this faceless state apparatus. The other members of government formed a backdrop for the leader of the country. Pictures of his speeches at the congresses were mounted with the hall of applauding delegates.
At the beginning of his rule, some of Brezhnev’s photos conveyed emotion and had a dynamic composition within the frame, although their expressive intensity had decreased significantly compared to official photos taken during the Thaw. The expressiveness made itself felt only occasionally, making an exception in cases where Brezhnev was portrayed with ordinary people, the workers.
Compared with images of Khrushchev, photographs of Brezhnev were more static in composition, less emotional, and often staged. Nevertheless, the tradition of the Thaw was partly present in Brezhnev’s canon. Depiction of physical contact in the photographs remained important. That appeared first of all in the forms of a handshake or applause.
Applause for the leader and his hand raised in greeting played an important role in the imagery. Applause could be inferred by images of party members clapping for Brezhnev in the background—like a curtain made up of clapping hands in an infinite pattern. The presence of people representing other races in the photos remained a key element for creating the image of power.
However, as we know, Brezhnev liked to hug and kiss party comrades and foreign guests. A widely known example of this is his kiss with general secretary Erich Honecker in East Germany in 1979. The photograph was taken by a Western journalist Régis Bossu and circulated in all the foreign newspapers. Later, this scene was depicted in Berlin Wall by Dmitri Vrubel.
If at the beginning of the Stagnation, Brezhnev’s gestures and facial expressions were often emotional, by the 1980s, any expression of the general secretary had been reduced to a minimum. As in photos covering the visit of the general secretary in Bonn in 1981, the static character of Brezhnev especially stands out from others in the frame (Musaelyan and Pesov 1981). This difference in representation is partly explained by the fact that at the initial stage, the heritage of the Thaw made itself felt. On the other hand, there was also the factor of Brezhnev’s health; he had been severely ill in recent years. In turn, the decline of the Brezhnev era came amid the completion of the stage in the history of international relations called “détente”.
Late in his career, old age and disease affected Brezhnev’s appearance, and then negatively influenced the perception of Soviet leadership. Brezhnev became the object of ridicule already during the Soviet years, and it only intensified after the collapse of the USSR. The petrified face of the Soviet leader, his slow speech and lethargic movements along with the grotesque facial expressions in the background of other elderly leaders of the country, who were hung with medals and congratulating crowds from the mausoleum, became for many people the symbol of Soviet rule, of its irrelevance and incapacity. Thus, the discrediting of Soviet power among citizens was largely due to its corporal image, embodied in the country’s leader.
Portraits of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who followed Brezhnev as general secretary of the Communist Party, had impersonal features. Official portraits and ceremonial photos were usually published revealing minimal facial expression.
The few photos of Andropov and Chernenko that appeared in the press fit into the same pattern of power representation that had developed late in Brezhnev’s era. There is a long line of official portraits of the government of the USSR and the USSR Council of Ministers, the negotiation table, the head of the state and government officials lined up with high-ranking guests in one row for a photo documentation of the meeting. These pictures do not even show a hint of the Soviet leaders’ emotions, turning them from humans into the base form of a state bureaucrat. Even the magazine Soviet Photo, which was a periodical aimed at artistic statement, published the official portraits of leaders. This occurred with the change of power, when Yuri Andropov died, and Konstantin Chernenko took his place (Soviet Photo 1984), and in turn when he was replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Photo 1985).
Standardization of ideological statements in that time, including visual production, is described by Yurchak: “During the late Soviet period, the form of ideological representations—documents, speeches, ritualized practices, slogans, posters, monuments, and urban visual propaganda—became increasingly normalized, ubiquitous, and predictable. This standardization of the form of discourse developed gradually, as a result of the disappearance, in the 1950s, of the external editorial voice that commented on that discourse. With that shift, the form of the ideological representations became fixed and replicated—unchanged from one context to the next” (2005, 14).
This “hegemony of form” can be seen in official and static poses, in ceremonial scenes, in limited repertoire of photographic plots. The absence of authoritative leaders (whom Yurchak calls “external figures”) like Stalin resulted in the representation of Soviet power as collective rule, with its extreme expression as Kremlin “iconostasis.” This was the shackled and formal language of Stagnation, distant from the monumentality of Stalin’s canon and from emancipated gestures, which were allowed in the Khrushchev era.
These patterns began to change with the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev, but it happened gradually. The situation with his birthmark is rather indicative: at first he appeared in these formal pictures without a birthmark, and then later with it. In many ways this inconsistency reflected ambivalent state policy, in which a tendency toward “glasnost” alternated with adherence to the strict rules of presentation inherited from previous years. In the end, due to the fact that video footage was not subjected to retouching and therefore people saw the birthmark on Gorbachev’s forehead on TV, a decree was issued not to airbrush out the birthmark in photos (Lenta.ru 2011).
The first publications of photos depicting Gorbachev and the leaders of foreign countries followed the old Brezhnev scheme, but at the same time, there were also dynamic reportage photos of Gorbachev with workers. For example, Gorbachev was captured gesticulating animatedly among the workers of Stavropol, standing on the same level with them (TASS 1985a).
Such animation gradually started to appear in more “official” settings. The camera captures Gorbachev’s lively gestures during a press conference with François Mitterrand in France, and at the factory, in Puassi, in October 1985 (TASS 1985b). More daring angles appeared in this publication. The Soviet leader was shot from the top down, when he made an entry in the guestbook upon visiting the museum-apartment of Lenin.
There were more smiles, gestures, and handshakes with each passing year in the photo frame. Meetings with leaders of other countries were also highlighted with increased emotionality. During his stay in Washington, Gorbachev was portrayed in motion, smiling broadly, as in a picture with Ronald Reagan before the signing of the agreement between the USSR and the United States on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (Baltermants 1987). Photos from the meeting of Reagan and Gorbachev in Moscow were also given dynamic treatment (Baltermants 1988a). Emotionality also emerges in pictures of Gorbachev and Bush. Although the compositional scheme partly remained the same, these photos are less static and we can see living interaction and communication taking place in the frame (Lizunov and Chumichev 1990).
Movement and emotionality became attributes of internal policy as well. Widely smiling Gorbachev was shown at the Nineteenth All-Union Conference of the CPSU. Next to him was published reportage footage of delegates (Baltermants 1988b). The camera seemed to grope for new language to describe the changes taking place in the country. Gradually, the image of lively discussions during the party’s meetings transformed into a show of heated debates and opposition between powers (Baltermants and Gostev 1989).
Gestures and emotional expressions became again an important component of the Soviet leader’s image. There were even publications focused on his hand gestures alone. They expressed freedom of opinion and lively discussion. Photographers tried to capture the emotions of the country’s leader and deputies, while not always positive. It now became possible for photos to show a preoccupied or gloomy look from the leader. All this foretold the rise of “glasnost.” Emotional intensity increased with the coming of the 1990s.
Already in the late eighties, other leaders were emerging in the media: Boris Yeltsin, Anatoly Sobchak, and Andrei Sakharov. Judging by the reportage style of photojournalistic coverage, which presented a more dynamic image of Yeltsin, he became a symbol of a new politic. In one frame, Yeltsin even leaned over Gorbachev as if he were calling him to answer (Korobeinikov et al. 1990). At the turn of the nineties, Yeltsin and Gorbachev frequently appeared in opposition within the frame, but at the same time, there were pictures where they were smiling together, demonstrating solidarity.
Boris Yeltsin was portrayed as a thoughtful person who speculated about the fate of the country. For example, he could be captured in the store looking dreamily at sausage links, as if lost in thought (Feklistov 1992a, 2–3). He came across as a “man of the people,” proclaimed as the upholder of democratic values, and can be seen in a crowd in a 1991 photo. At the same time, he was given an air of authority in photos where technology again figured prominently. For example, we see him in one photo surrounded by dozens of microphones, all pointing toward him and serving to enhance his image as an important communicator (Feklistov 1992b, 2).
Pictures of heads of the state for a long time had not been published in Soviet Photo, but at the beginning of the 1990s, images of politicians that were shot in an expressive manner appeared here. A portrait of a pensive Gorbachev, the newly created President of Soviet Union, as well as worried faces of deputies, the expressive gestures of Anatoly Sobchak, a surly Eduard Shevardnadze and Dmitry Yazov, the bald heads of delegates in a conference room—such images of power were created in this magazine on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Already, in 1992, Shevardnadze covering his face with his hands (Pesov 1992), as well as Secretary of the CPSU G. Yanaev captured in an unsightly moment wiping his nose (Chumichev 1992), formed the final chord in the visual chronicle of this magazine, which was renamed Photograph after the collapse of the USSR and continued publication until 1995, when it folded due to a lack of funding.
Meanwhile, photos ridiculing the old-order Soviet leaders were appearing in the press by the end of the 1980s, which underlines the sufficient freedom enjoyed by the press at that time. Much of the ridicule was based on physical appearance, with a focus on unattractive features and silly poses or facial expressions that the camera picked up. The main object of derision was Brezhnev, but other Soviet leaders were targeted as well. A “competition of body parts” was once presented on the last page of Ogoniok (1992a, 32). The reader had to guess to which member of the former Politburo a particular forehead or chin belonged.
Another dimension of the role played by the body in Soviet perceptions of power can be seen in media coverage of disease—in this case, efforts to make aging leaders of the old order appear weak. Detailed information was often published about their respective diseases, often as an attempt to explain the policies they advocated.
The fact that bodily components played an important role in the representation of the change in power is also confirmed by shots taken in places where Soviet high officials, such as Boris Pugo, Nikolay Kruchina, and Sergej Akhromeev, committed suicide. The bloodied head of Pugo appeared in close-up on the pages of Ogoniok (1992b, 13), proclaiming the death of an enemy and a regime change. Such images contrasted greatly with pictures of government leaders’ deaths in the old days, when lavish funeral were given and one would see the dead body surrounded by flowers and a group of mourners glorifying the deceased.
However, death, in all its stark reality, was the usual image seen during this political transition. A photo of a dead man on the pavement taken on 21 August 1991 in Moscow, on the Garden Ring, was published on the front cover of the next issue of Ogoniok (Hamelyanin 1992, front cover). Pictures of bloodied carcasses of meat and images of dead children displayed on the pages of magazines were symptoms of painful changes occurring in the country.
Conclusion
Representation of the body of the Soviet leaders changed depending on the value system of society. Bodily practices in the Soviet period were not a homogeneous phenomenon. Strictness and stillness of poses during Stalin’s era were replaced with emancipation of the body during Khrushchev’s tenure. Changes had occured even at the level of the leaders’ choice of clothes. Technology extended the body of the leaders, linking them to the people. An important component in the representation of power was the absence or the presence of women in the political life of the state.
Symbolic generalizations of the policy occurred also on the level of the body. For example, political support of African peoples expressed itself by hugging. Bodily metaphors were also important for conveying Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War. 12 Capturing on film, Khrushchev’s gestures and facial expressions made plain the state’s attitude toward certain political events, sending a message to the general reader. In magazines such photos were understood in the context of captions or an article placed next to the photo. Through these images, a wide spectrum of emotions could be observed. Anger or threat could be read in the face of a leader reacting to world imperialism, peacefulness could be seen in gestures toward ordinary Americans, fraternal love was apparent in enthusiastic hugs with the leaders of the Cuban Revolution.
The time of Brezhnev’s Stagnation offered its own bodily codes, which were not so open as before. Images of crowds applauding Brezhnev served as proof that the country was moving in the right direction. Numerous medals on his clothing not only indicated the merits of the general secretary but also connoted the power of the Soviet state. Photos with representatives of Third World countries continued to demonstrate a friendly but patronizing attitude toward them.
Later, in the early nineties, the body of the Soviet power in the press was destroyed—dismembered and killed. The new ideology established itself through a ridicule of disabilities and the portrayal of death of former leaders. New bodily codes would be developed and applied to new heroes.
Notes
- 1.
“Bodily hexis is political mythology realized, embodied, turned into a permanent disposition, a durable way of standing, speaking, walking, and thereby of feeling and thinking” (Bourdieu 1990, 69–70).
- 2.
The following quotation by Ernst Kantorowicz has not lost its relevance today in the early twenty-first century: “Not only is the body politic ‘more ample and large’ than the body natural, but there dwell in the former certain truly mysterious forces which reduce, or even remove, the imperfections of the fragile human nature” (Kantorowicz 1957, 9).
- 3.
The research of images of the Thaw is partly based on the author’s dissertation “The Representation of the Body in the Soviet photography of the Thaw,” defended in 2012 at Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow.
- 4.
In his book Yurchak tries to avoid the use of binary categories to describe Soviet reality such as oppression and resistance, repression and freedom, the state and the people, official culture and counterculture, truth and lie, and so on, because he sees “the roots of these binary categories” originating in the broad “regimes of knowledge” formed under the conditions of the Cold War, when the entity of “the Soviet bloc” had been articulated in opposition to “the West” and as distinct from “the Third World” (Yurchak 2005, 5).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
The Soviet space program included not just space exploration but rocketry in general.
- 8.
Parental discourse was very important in representation of the Soviet cosmonauts. This was pointed out by several researchers (Kohonen 2009, 123; Schwartz 2008, 171–177).
- 9.
In the material on the visits of Khrushchev to France and America were published photographs of the Soviet premier with children. Journalists described the meetings in the text: “Nikita willingly talked with the children, took kids in his hands, and paternally caressed them” (Ivanov 1959, 7).
- 10.
Find out more about the role of First Ladies during the Soviet period in the article “Paternalistic Images of Power in Soviet Photography” (Vikulina 2015b).
- 11.
On the cover of the issue devoted to Brezhnev’s visit to France he is shown smiling and shaking hands with French President Georges Pompidou (Musaelyan and Egorov 1973). See also General Secretary of CPSU L. I. Brezhnev and French President Georges Pompidou, telephoto, Ogoniok 28: front cover. Handshake of Brezhnev and Pompidou was published for the second time during this year. In January, Ogoniok published the article “USSR - France: Growing Cooperation” about the meeting of the two leaders in Zaslavl (Musaelyan et al. 1973)
- 12.
For example, this confirms the following brutal joke made by Khrushchev: “We will never accept Adenauer as the representative of Germany. If to take off his pants and look at his ass, we can see that Germany is divided. And if you look at it from the front, you can be sure that Germany will never rise” (Taubman 2004, 750).