Browse Items (22 total)

Flourishing under Stalin-era reinvention of Russian national culture, Russian lacquer crafts were creations of a Tsarist age. In fact, it was from Japanese toys and boxes that Russian craftsmen took inspiration, so it is on a borrowed canvas that…

[Object biography related to Thursday's lecture]

“Under the Banner of Lenin - Socialist Construction” is a photomontage poster created by Gustav Klutsis in 1930. It is an artifact of the Soviet propaganda campaign to shift the mindset of every Russian citizen through art. Klutsis’s posters are…

With an economic value that far outweighs its relatively small physical characteristics and unassuming appearance, caviar is an item whose collection, consumption, and commodification has given it one of great historical, cultural, and geopolitical…

The T-34 is widely regarded as the most influential tank of WWII, credited (along with the Russian winter) with turning the tide against the Nazi’s in the east. The T-34 was both a technological and industrial marvel, coupling advanced engineering…

The Lada 2100 (“Zhiguli”) was a type of car produced in the Soviet Union by the Lada company. The car, modeled after the Fiat 124 and marketed as the “people’s car” became available for purchase in 1970 in the Soviet Union. However, a commercial…

The St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev is an important monument to the increasing influence of Orthodox Christianity, as well as the flourishing of Ukrainian artistic expression, under the reign of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kievan Rus. This…