The Collection of Posters in the Slavonic Library

Name The Collection of Posters in the Slavonic Library A famous poster “To help victims of the war on 20st-21st of August, Moscow” (1914) made by L. O. Pasternak (T-P-1-30)
A famous poster “To help victims of the war on 20st-21st of August, Moscow” (1914) made by L. O. Pasternak (T-P-1-30)
Catalog Number T-P
Volume approximately 800 posters
State of Cataloging The collection is gradually being catalogued; the catalogued parts are accessible to researchers
Languages of Documents

The collection of posters in the Slavonic Library comprises approximately 800 items. It was not created through systematic acquisitions but rather through an occasional, random accumulation of documents available. The core as well as the most valuable part of the collection is formed by Russian posters from the First World War, the revolutionary year of 1917 and the years of the Russian Civil War. Most of them, specifically 187 pieces, were collected and handed over to the Slavonic library by its founder, Vladimir Nikolaevich Tukalevskii. The remaining approximately 100 posters concerning the given theme were probably donated to the SL by individuals fleeing even with their collections from Bolshevik Russia. One can find here not only classic pictorial posters (including such authors as L. O. Pasternak, A. M. Vasnetsov. D. S. Moor, V. N. Deni and others) – other items interesting for research are textual posters and leaflets containing various proclamations and appeals, which were often removed from the places where they were publicly displayed. Textual posters map mainly the period of the collapse of the Tsarist regime and the activities of the Provisional Government as well as the period between the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the dispersal of the Constitutional Assembly.

Likewise Soviet posters of the 1920s and 1930s have a great historical value. The authors include such famous names as D. S. Moor, V. V. Maiakovskii, D. I. Melnikov and others.

The number of Ukrainian and Bulgarian posters is lower (most of them were made in the interwar period). A total of 40 posters have South Slavic themes. The most important of them come from Sarajevo from the period of the Civil War in the former Yugoslavia. Posters issued in commemoration of the centenary of the death of T. Shevchenko and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin have been separated out. A total of 70 posters come from Czech and Slovak areas. Most of them were created between 1948 and 1989 and are associated with various professional Slavic events, Czechoslovak-Soviet relations or the period Communist propaganda.

The collection is gradually being catalogued; the inventory lists of individual thematic parts are continuously being made available to the scientific community.

Based on the theme, provenance or period, the collection has been divided into the following sections:

  • T-P-1 – Russian Posters of the First World War
  • T-P-2 – The February Revolution and the Provisional Government
  • T-P-3 – The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
  • T-P-4 – Russian Posters of the Civil War
  • T-P-5 – Soviet Posters of the 1920s and 1930s
  • T-P-6 – Soviet Posters from the Second World War
  • T-P-7 – Soviet Posters after the Second World War
  • T-P-9 – Ukrainian Posters
  • T-P-10 – Russian Posters – Other
  • T-P-11 – Russian Educational Posters of the 1920s
  • T-P-12 – Posters Issued by Germans during the Second World War
  • T-P-13 – Posters with Bulgarian Themes
  • T-P-14 – Czech and Slovak Posters
  • T-P-15 – Posters on the Anniversary of A. S. Pushkin (1949)
  • T-P-16 – Posters on the Anniversary of T. Shevchenko (1961)
  • T-P-17 – Posters of the Slavonic Library
  • T-P-18 – Posters with South Slavic Themes

Digitized items from the collection are available on esbirky.cz web portal.

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