Changes in the Content of Propaganda During the Great Patriotic War on the Example of the Soviet Poster: Historiography and Interpretation of Images

The research focuses on the evolution of the visual content of the Soviet posters during the Great Patriotic War. The authors argue that the course of battles and the related changes at the front directly influenced the theme of the poster genre. They reveal the sequence in the change of images and in their symbolic content. At the beginning of the war the posters represented propaganda of mass heroism, the image of I.V. Stalin as a party leader, the theme of the struggle of Communism against Nazism, and the Red Army, which alone resisted Hitler’s aggression. By the end of the war, posters increasingly used themes of individual heroism, the image of “Stalin as a party and state leader” was replaced by “Stalin as a commander and leader of the nation”, and the theme of loneliness in confronting the aggressor was replaced by the joint struggle of the USSR and its allies.