The form and content of the early Soviet book: a study through the country's publishing industry institutions of the 1920s and 1930s

我的博士研究是调查苏联艺术家，包括那些在西方学术界被视为唯一创新者的建构主义阵营之外的艺术家，是如何接近苏联早期书籍设计的主题的。我将探讨不同理论和风格的艺术家如何促成早期苏联书籍中形式和内容之间的相互关系问题，鉴于其作为启蒙工具，鼓动工具和苏维埃政权在国外声誉的推动者的多重功能。这项调查将通过对与我国新兴出版业有关的主要机构进行研究来进行。这将包括莫斯科和彼得格勒/列宁格勒主要出版社的编辑过程，包括国家出版社（Gosizdat）、世界文学（Vsemirnaia literatura）和学术界；全联盟对外文化关系协会出版分会的国际活动；以及在莫斯科和列宁格勒的高等艺术与技术工作室（VKhuTEMAS）及其后继工作室VKhuTEIN教授平面艺术和书籍设计。弗拉基米尔·法沃斯基（Vladimir Favorskii）是其中一位艺术家，他的作品将根据这项研究被重新评估，他是苏联木版雕刻师、书籍艺术家和VKhUTEMAS的多色系教授，他在西方学术界几乎完全被忽视了，他在整个20世纪20年代的书籍相关活动在很多方面都比人们普遍认为的更接近于构成主义者。

My PhD research is an inquiry into how Soviet artists, including those from outside the Constructivist camp, generally seen in Western scholarship as its exclusive innovators, have approached the topic of early Soviet book design. I will explore how the artists of varied theoretical and stylistic affiliations contributed to the issue of interrelation between form and content within the early Soviet book, in view of its multiple function as a tool of enlightenment, an instrument of agitation and a promoter of the Soviet regime's reputation abroad. The investigation will be carried out through a study of major institutions related to the country's burgeoning publishing industry. These will include the editorial processes within major publishing houses of Moscow and Petrograd/Leningrad, including The State Publishing House (Gosizdat), World Literature (Vsemirnaia literatura) and Academia; the international activity of the publishing branch of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS); and the teaching of graphic art and book design at The Higher Art and Technical Studios (VKhuTEMAS) and its successor, VKhuTEIN, both in Moscow and Leningrad.One of the artists, whose work will be reassessed in light of this research, is Vladimir Favorskii, a Soviet wood engraver, book artist and professor of the VKhUTEMAS's polygraphic faculty, who has been almost entirely overlooked in Western scholarship, and whose book-related activity throughout the 1920s was in many ways a lot closer to that of the Constructivists, than has generally been considered.