Political Posters in Central and Eastern Europe 1945–95 - Tapa dura

The political poster was one of the most widely discredited and closely policed aspects of cultural life in the former Communist Bloc. As a weapon in an ideologically defined social struggle for human emancipation and as a medium of critical engagement, the poster had a decisive political and social status it could never aspire to in the West. The poster's history is a story of aesthetic, political and finally, national liberation. The nature of the political poster can be seen to move from the empty rhetorics of political sloganeering to become a weapon of criticism and resistance. This comprehensively illustrated analysis of political poster design - drawn from major collections in Bellorussia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovenia and the Ukraine - exemplifies the aesthetic diversity of the region under communist rule.

James Aulich is Senior Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. Marta Sylvestrova is Curator at the Moravian Gallery, in the Czech Republic.