"On the Joyous Day of Liberation from under the Yoke of the German Invaders"

This poster by Viktor Koretskii celebrates the victory of Red Army forces in turning the tide on the Eastern Front after German forces were turned back in a number of brutal and costly battles, including Stalingrad and Kursk. As in Nazi Germany, the more avant-garde experimentations of early Soviet propaganda gave way during the war to the "realist" style that predominated under Stalin. The image of the archetypal Russian peasant family smiling under the portrait of Stalin, with the caption "On the Joyous Day of Liberation from under the Yoke of the German Invaders," was no doubt meant to reassure a traumatized Russian population. At least 20 million Soviet civilians perished during the conflict.

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