The book series Est’ Stat’ v Stroy! as an example of Soviet military-patriotic propaganda
Authors:   Verkhnevolzhsk State University of Agronomy and Biothechnology, Komissarov Vladimir V. , Soloviev Alexei A. ,   Verkhnevolzhsk State University of Agronomy and Biothechnology
Published: October 2024

The article considers the history of the military-patriotic book series Est’ Stat’ v Stroy! [Back in lines! - Yes, sir!]. This series was published in 1967-1986 in the Molodaya Gvardiya [Young Guard] publishing house of the Central Committee of the Komsomol. The authors of the article set three research objectives: (1) to examine the composition of the studied book series; (2) to study the sociopolitical conditions of its occurrence: (3) to analyze the features of the subject of books and forms of presentation of the material, and to consider the stages of prepress preparation of these publications. The books of the book series were used as sources. Archival materials from the funds of the Russian State Archive of SocioPolitical History (RGASPI) were also involved. The latter are the documents of the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house, the so-called author’s files for published products. They included author’s applications, publishing agreements between authors and editors, fee sheets, reviews of manuscripts, and correspondence with authors, reviewers, censorship authorities. A significant part of the documents are introduced into scholarly discouse for the first time. The study resulted in the following. The series Est’ Stat’ v Stroy! was the outcome of a political order, as evidenced by the revealed correspondence between the publishing house and political bodies of various types and branches of the armed forces. But the editorial staff also worked on these publications willingly and proactively. Unlike other “custom-made” ideological publications, which were not sold out and occupied the shelves of Soviet bookstores for years, the books of the series very quickly became scarce and inaccessible even in libraries. The work on compiling the collections of the series was a difficult organizational task. It was necessary to coordinate the activities of the authors of sections and essays, reviewers and designers, to obtain visas of political organizations and censors. In some cases, work on books was delayed due to the author’s unreliability or the unsatisfactory quality of the materials. The editors of the publishing house very carefully approached the issue of reviewing the books of the series and involving specialists from leading higher military educational institutions of the relevant profile in this procedure. The books to a certain extent reflected their era, the level of development of both book production technology and propaganda techniques. The books in this series may be of interest to researchers in a number of aspects: as a source on the history of book publishing, on the order of prepress preparation, design of publications; as a source on the forms and methods of military-patriotic propaganda, methods of ideological work in the 1960s and 1970s; and as a source of a general historical nature. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.