{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O76004"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76004/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019LX6076/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019LX6076/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2019LX6076","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AU2680","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O76004","accessionNumber":"E.1274-1989","objectType":"Poster","titles":[{"title":"1905. The Road To October","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Valentina Kulagina often used photomontage in her work. This 1929 work, commemorates the events of Bloody Sunday, January 1905, when over a thousand peaceful demonstrators were massacred as they marched on the Russian tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg. This was part of a wider revolt that led the tsar, Nicholas II, to publish the October Manifesto at the end of the year, promising a constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. \r\n\r\nIn Kulagina’s design, tsarist brutality is contained by the powerful marching steps of the monumental workers. The head of Nicholas II is framed within the toppled crown. Both devices intimate the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolshevik Party seize power following the overthrow of the monarchy.","physicalDescription":"portrait format poster printed in red and black. In centre forground a 'constructivist' style figure in red, striding across picture plane. Behind him in steep perspectival recession and exactly repeating his stance, four further figures. Behind/below them, a photo-montage of the streets in  St Petersburg at the time of the 1905 October Revolution, and rising in a line from the bottom of the image three much smaller 'constructivist' figures firing guns from a battlement, toward, in the lower right corner of the image, a white outline of a toppled crown, behind which a photographic image of Tzar Nicholas II. The date 1905 appears like a banner in the upper left corner of the image.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Kulagina, Valentina","id":"A7864"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"printing ink","id":"AAT187371"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"half-tone letterpress","id":"x35970"},{"text":"colour lithography","id":"AAT190525"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Half-tone letterpress and colour lithograph","categories":[{"text":"Propaganda","id":"THES48902"},{"text":"Royalty","id":"THES48899"}],"styles":[{"text":"Social Realist","id":"x35676"},{"text":"Constructivist","id":"AAT21393"},{"text":"Photo-montage","id":"x36157"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2019LX6076","2006AU2680"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLC","id":"THES49171"},"free":"","case":"MB3H","shelf":"DR4","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"posters","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics","id":"x30677"},"association":{"text":"published","id":"x30682"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1929","earliest":"1929-01-01","latest":"1929-12-31"},"association":{"text":"published","id":"x30682"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"1025","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"794","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Details of production","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"Russian","medium":"","method":"half- tone letterpress","position":"bottom margin","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"Distributor's identification","note":"Distributor's identification; Russian; bottom margin; half- tone letterpress"}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"'1905. The Road to Red October', Valentina Kulagina; Russia, 1929\r\n","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"All lettering is in Russian, the title given above is a translation.","productionType":{"text":"Mass produced","id":"THES48863"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[{"text":"St.Petersburg","id":"x29178"}],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Tsar Nicholas II","id":"N1908"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[{"text":"Russian Revolution 1905","id":"V186"}],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[{"text":"Revolution","id":"x36147"}],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Cut Out: A Feminist History of Photo Collage, Montage and Assemblage (Fiona Rogers, V&A publishing, spring 2026)\r\n\r\nValentina Kulagina, a Russian painter and designer, was a central figure in the Constructivist avant-garde during the early twentieth century, alongside El Lissitzky, Varvara Stepanova, and her husband Gustav Klutsis. Kulagina often used photomontage and graphic design in her ‘agitprop’ artworks. This piece commemorates the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in January 1905, when over a thousand peaceful demonstrators were massacred as they marched on the Russian tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg. In Kulagina’s design, tsarist brutality is contained by the powerful marching steps of the monumental workers. The head of Nicholas II is framed within the toppled crown. Both devices intimate the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolshevik Party seize power following the overthrow of the monarchy.","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}},{"text":"This Russian poster commemorates Bloody Sunday in January 1905, when over a thousand peaceful demonstrators were massacred as they marched on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. In Kulagina’s design, the unstoppable marching steps of the monumental workers contain images of tsarist brutality.  A toppled crown frames the head of Tsar Nicholas II, symbolising his removal during the Russian Revolution.\r\n\r\nA World to Win: Posters of Protest and Revolution, V&A, Galleries 88a and 90, (1 May-2 Nov 2014)","date":{"text":"01/05/2014-02/11/2014","earliest":"2014-05-01","latest":"2014-11-02"}}],"partNumbers":["E.1274-1989"],"accessionNumberNum":"1274","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1989,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-11-27","recordCreationDate":"2003-03-05","availableToBook":false}}