Bookvica

[AIDS] Three posters

Item #1736

Stoite! Opomnites’! Strasti umer’te! SPID – kak chuma! Kak dykhanie smerti [i.e. Stop! Wake Up! Temper Passions! AIDS Is Like Plague! Like Death Breath!] / Drawing by V. Zhelobinskii,
verses by V. Shumilina. Moscow: Khudozhnik RSFSR, [late 1980s]. 44x33 cm. Very good, stamp erased on rear side.

DoSPIDania! [i.e. See-You-In-AIDS] / Drawn by D. Oboznenko. Moscow: Khudozhnik RSFSR, [late 1980s]. 44x33 cm. Good, creases of upper edge, on rear side pale water stain and stamp bedaubed. U SPIDa ne ulybochka – oskal… Smotri, chtob on tebia ne prilaskal [i.e. AIDS Has No Smile But Grin… Beware Not to Be Fondled by It] / Drawing by B. Tsygankov, verses by A. Shkliarinskii. Moscow: Khudozhnik RSFSR, [late 1980s]. 44x33 cm. Very good, stamp on rear side bedaubed.

Three late Soviet posters produced by the art organization ‘Fighting Pencil’. The first one was issued in a series “For Your Health”, the rest were published in a series “Both Laughter and Sin”. In the USSR, the first officially documented case of HIV infection was diagnosed in 1987. Until this year, the USSR called it “a disease common in the West among prostitutes, homeless people
and homosexuals”. The Soviet healthcare organizations proudly declared that the country was free from HIV because there weren’t neither prostitution nor substance dependence. The existence of drag use and prostitution was underestemated. However, the largest outbreak of infection, that happened in Elista in 1988, was announced in a TV program ‘Vremia’ that meant to open it up for the whole country. After that, the USSR was forced to face the threat, add HIV/AIDS into a list of official social diseases and publish various printed matters against promiscuity.

Status: On Hold