Okna Tass

Okna Tass 

(literally, Windows of TASS), propagandistic political posters issued by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45.

The drawings and texts of the Okna TASS called for victory over the enemy and glorified the feats of the Soviet people. The posters affirmed the heroic past of the peoples of the USSR and angrily denounced the fascist German invaders. Many Soviet artists (Kukryniksy, V. V. Lebedev, G. K. Savitskii, P. P. Soko-lov-Skalia, M. M. Cheremnykh, P. M. Shukhmin) and poets (Dem’ian Bednyi, V. I. Lebedev-Kumach, S. Ia. Marshak) participated in the preparation of the Okna TASS.

More than 1,500 issues appeared, each with editions of up to 1,000 copies. The techniques used to make the posters were constantly improved upon and became more complex. The number of colors in a single poster reached ten to 12, sometimes more. The Okna TASS were issued in Moscow and served as models for similar posters produced in other Soviet cities, including Tashkent, Baku, Frunze, Ashkhabad, Tomsk, Saratov, Murmansk, Khabarovsk, and Sverdlovsk.

REFERENCES

Kholodovskaia, M. Z. Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina v sovetskoi grafike. Moscow, 1948.
Demosfenova, G., A. Nurok, and N. Shantyko. Sovetskii politicheskii plakat. Moscow, 1962.
Suzdalev, P. K. Sovetskoe iskusstvo perioda Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny. Moscow, 1965.
Okna TASS: 1941–1945 [collection]. Compiled by N. Denisovskii. [Moscow, 1970.]