zu „Forschung”

Forschungswerkstatt

Die Forschungswerkstatt gibt Einblick in Institutsaktivitäten, die noch nicht abgeschlossen sind, oder die, wie im Falle von Tagungen, temporären Charakter haben. Analog zum Ausdruck „work in progress“ könnte man hier auch von „projects in progress“ sprechen.

Atheistische Propagandaplakate - Aesthetics of Atheism

The State Museum of the History of Religions in St. Petersburg was established in 1932 as a Museum for Atheism and has a large collection of items related to the antireligious campaigns and organisations in the soviet Union. The following posters are part of this stock and have been selected from a corpus of forty posters that would have been exhibited in the summer of 2020 in the university’s Neues Augusteum. But this exhibition was only one in a long row of exhibitions that could not be shown due to the Covid19-pandemy.

The idea to display them virtually and to accompany them by poster descriptions was developed in a seminar on atheist poster art by Horst Junginger and Katharina Neef. The texts are authored by the students of that seminar. Furthermore, they were part of an international workshop on “Aesthetics of Atheism” that was hosted online on 4-5 March 2021.

Jasmin Eder

Kukryniksy: The Laggard of Christmas

The Laggard of Christmas: Poster Kukryniksy 1931

Andreas Hölke

Vsevolod Pervunin: Then and Now

The poster is divided into two parts. It shows scenes of everyday life in the barracks. On the left side the tsarist military and on the right side the new modern Red Army. The dual arrangement illustrates modern non-religious educational methods of the red army in contrast to the obedience and devotion of the tsarist army to the tsar and the russian orthodox church. The symbolism used is all in all non-religious rather than anti-religious.

Katja Holzmann

N. Terpsikhorov: Religion is Poison - Protect the Children

The poster portrays the diametry of religion and socialism. In the left foreground we see an old woman with the features of a witch roughly pulling a young girl by her blonde braid from a school building in the right background while pointing her fingers towards a church in the left background. The school is depicted as a stable modern building. The church on the other hand as a decaying old one. On the roof of the school stands a young healthy-looking man in uniform, holding up a trombone. Above him is the silhouette of an airplane. An old bearded man in church robes looks out of a stone window of the church while birds circle above the leaning church towers.

Tanja Lukas

Anon.: Against religious holidays, for a good work ethic

The poster displays a tall socialist worker who has little people by his legs. These “dwarfed” people represent the old order of the Sowjet Union. Some of them are trying to hold the worker back. He’s walking towards a factory in the background of the picture, so the face isn’t displayed. In the background, more workers are walking towards the factory, but none of them is hindered by the “dwarfed” people.

Julia Wirth

Anon.: Down with the clergy and miracle healers!

The poster consists of three different sets of pictures, each being accompanied by a short text located underneath the pictures. The first set of pictures shows religious agents (an Orthodox priest and miracle healers) performing rituals or blessings directed at livestock animals which look sick and underfed. The second set of pictures first shows dead animals and animal skeletons lying on a field, being preyed upon by a dog and several crows, while the other picture in that set depicts two people burying a dead animal in a fenced-in area. The last picture finally shows farmers presenting their animals - which now seem healthy in contrast to the other pictures (their bones are no longer visible through their skin) - to vets for inspection.

Saskia Wolters

Viktor Deni: How the Priests Exploit the People

In this poster, one of the reasons for an anti-clericalist stance is depicted. A clergyman sits well-fed on a large armchair with a red fringed carpet underneath, joyfully awaiting offerings from the people. Two peasants bow before him. The woman (headscarf, cardigan and skirt) holds a chicken in her hand and a basket with eggs stands in front of her. The man (white beard, yellow and red dotted long shirt) assumes a humble posture. The bloated clergyman grins nastily, closes his eyes and holds his hands together in front of his stomach over a large golden cross.

Franca Borger

M. Rabinovich: Fight against Religion is Fight for Socialism

Two red-colored socialist workers, one of them holding a red flag, on which is written 'cultural revolution!!!' are driving a red-colored tractor on a diagonale from bottom-left to top-right against a group of protesting religious men from different traditions: an orthodox priest, a rabbi, a mullah, a sectarian Protestant; and a kulak. Behind the group of people, on the right corner, is a red-colored industrial city. On the bottom of the diagonale is a Russian inscription, read: 'Fight against religion is fight for socialism!!!'. Above the bold text you can see the emblem of the League of Militant Atheists: a gearwheel with a red star, a red flag, the initials СВБ, bearing the same inscription as the poster: 'Fight against religion is fight for socialism'.

Eric Raatz

Dmitri Moor: Out of the Way!

In the foreground, two very different people face each other. The one on the left is a man in a tails and top hat, well-fed and standing on black ground. On his top hat the word CAPITAL can be read in Russian. He stretches his left hand towards his opponent - a claw-like hand from which blood drips. In his right hand he holds gallow and chains. From his open mouth he spews. His wide eyes are directed at his counterpart, who outwardly embodies the opposite. A man who represents the working class. With strong arms he points his rifle with bayonet at him. Below him, everything can be seen in red color. While the religious bearers of various kinds oppose the workers' fighter in an invocative way, behind the person embodying capital those are recognizable who also represent capital. Above and below the edge of the picture the following text in Russian can be read: THE PRIESTS HELP THE CAPITALIST AND DISTURB THE WORKER. OUT OF THE WAY!

Melissa Freund

Dmitri Moor: The Heavenly Tsars

The poster shows a variety of gods from different religions, monotheistic as well as pagan ones, with name insignia above them. They are dining together while the archangel Gabriel delivers them a copy of the newspaper “Bezbozhnik”. The copy reads: “We are done with the earthly Czar. Now we’re coming for the heavenly Czars!” At the bottom of the poster, towers of different places of worship are shown, from different Christian churches to a Buddhist temple.

Claudia von Holten-Eichhorn

Vladislav Künnap: Tourist Garb ... and its Uncovering

This poster is split in two parts consisting of two pictures and text. The first illustration depicts a man who looks like a typical tourist in a big fluffy fur coat with two cameras in a snowy landscape. The other illustration shows the same man who is pinned on a border cabinet of the CCCP and a border guard of the Soviet Union who operates the cabinet. Out of the fur coat of the tourist are falling a lot of religious books. The sentences written on the poster says “the soviet borders are closed for this special kind of guests”.

Alexander Rosenstein

Religion - an Obstacle to the Five-Year-Plan

Plakat: Religion - an Obstacle to the Five-Year-Plan