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Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies

This guide provides an introduction to the resources for the study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe available at Duke University Libraries.

On the library's website

Americans in the Land of Lenin: Documentary Photographs of Early Soviet Russia:
750 photographs of every-day life in the Soviet Union (1919-1921 and 1930).

Russian Posters Collection, 1919-1989 and undated
75 Soviet posters, documenting almost 60 years of Communist political advertising (1920s-1980s).

At the Nasher Museum

The Nasher Museum has a collection of modern and contemporary Russian art, which was was mostly acquired as gifts from about 1990 to 2003 from the artists themselves, from dealers, and from Russian émigré collectors. The collection includes pre-Soviet era, Soviet era, and post-Soviet era works by the avant-garde, state-recognized artists, non-conformist artists, and émigré artists. 

  • Paintings -- constitute a third of the collection.  Although there are half a dozen paintings from the early part of the twentieth century, by far the largest component of the collection is by second-generation non-conformist artists and Sots artists from the Brezhnev era into the post-Soviet period, including such well-known names as Eli Beliutin, Ilya Kabakov, Komar & Melamid,  Ernst Naizvestnyi, and Mikhail Chemiakin.
  • Works on paper -- constitute over one-half of the collection.  Includes works by El Lissitzky, and over 40 Soviet propaganda posters, primarily from the late 1920s-early 1930s (although there are some earlier and later ones as well). 
  • Sculptures -- 65 pieces