Preview our FALL 2024 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
FOUR CORNERS BOOKS
Greetings from the Barricades
Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia
By Tobie Mathew.
"Tobie Mathew’s magnificent book testifies to Russia’s unrepeatable two years of free-ranging political satire." –Donald Rayfield, Literary Review
Amid the chaos and violence of the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the Tsar’s opponents printed and distributed vast quantities of picture postcards. Easy to share, hide and smuggle, postcards were a way to beat the censor and spread a message of defiance.
Produced by a diverse set of revolutionaries, liberals and opportunists, the content of these cards is equally wide-ranging: from satirical caricatures directed against the government to rare photographs of revolutionary demonstrations. Many of the cards are darkly humorous, combining laughter with a sense of raw indignation at the injustices of Imperial Russia.
Assembled by Tobie Mathew, a writer and historian specializing in Russian graphic art and propaganda, Greetings from the Barricades is the first major study of the design, production and distribution of these cards, featuring more than 200 images. Together, they form a rich body of political art that illustrates the danger of opposing the regime during this turbulent era.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Greetings from the Barricades.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Creative Review
Emma Tucker
As small and cheaply produced pieces of print, postcards were easily smuggled from person to person, allowing subversive ideas to be shared among a population that was largely illiterate.
It's Nice That
Billie Muraben
Written by Tobie Mathew, a historian specialising in Russian graphic art and propaganda, the book takes in the publishing activity of a diverse set of revolutionaries; who while differing in their views and intentions, were settled on the efficiency of postcards in spreading messages of defiance.
Calvert Journal
Writer and journalist Tobie Mathew’s Greetings from the Barricades explores the history of Russian picture postcards, which opponents of the Tsar came up with as a way of beating censorship and inspiring defiance in the early 20th century.
Russian Art & Culture
Peter Lowe
Greetings from the Barricades: Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia takes as its theme the popularity of the postcard format in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Chronologically, its content ends with the abdication of the Tsar in early 1917 and the apparent fulfilment of many of the reformist hopes that inspired the cards seen in its pages. These were not, in the main, views of places or people intended to be sent simply through the Russian postal system. They were, rather, inexpensive ways of circulating photographs, cartoons, or other images via underground and, occasionally, commercial channels, facilitating the exchange of ideas in a country where the print media was often heavily censored.
Literary Review
Donald Rayfield
Tobie Mathew’s magnificent book testifies to Russia’s unrepeatable two years of free-ranging political satire.
White Review
Ben Eastham
Offers an unexpected illustration of how new communication technologies can upend societies.
Tank
Greetings From The Barricades, written by historian Tobie Mathew and published by Four Corners books, is the first major study of the design, production, and distribution of these cards, collecting over 200 images. Produced by revolutionaries, liberals and economic opportunists (postcards were in high demand and mostly sold rather than freely distributed), the cards are unified by their subtle design and sharp criticism of Tsarist repression.
Spectator
Charlotte Hobson
In this handsomely illustrated book Tobie Mathew makes a case for the lowly postcard’s role in the politicization of pre-revolutionary Russia.
Times Literary Supplement
George Walden
The images reproduced here in glorious profusion are as colourful, powerful and original as you would expect at a moment when Russian art was in the ascendancy.
Jeff Brooks
Greetings From the Barricades, a delight to read, illuminates a hitherto ignored aspect of Russia's revolutionary past.
in stock $60.00
Free Shipping
UPS GROUND IN THE CONTINENTAL U.S. FOR CONSUMER ONLINE ORDERS
The 1905 Russian Revolution—which included worker strikes, mass peasant unrest and military mutinies leading up to the 1906 October Manifesto, in which Tsar Nicholas II was forced to concede basic civil rights and an elected parliament—preceded the Bolshevik Revolution by twelve years. During this time, revolutionaries began to use printed postcards as a cheap, effective conduit for their political ideas. This week, Four Corners Books has released Greetings from the Barricades, a beautifully designed and printed, 480-page hardcover collection of revolutionary postcards from Imperial Russia, compiled by Tobie Mathew. "Over recent years the internet has transformed the organization of subversive activity," Mathew writes. "Through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, opposition parties and terrorist groups have acquired instant access to citizens the world over. A hundred years ago the Russian revolutionaries were not so very different from today's militants and freedom fighters—a small band of committed individuals who needed to convince a nation to act against what they perceived to be a morally bankrupt regime. The medium they used may have been less technologically advanced, but it was no less effective in communicating partisan tales of popular resistance." Featured image, a hand-drawn caricature of Tsar Nicholas (c. 1905) which appears in the book and comes blown-in as a beautiful stand-alone postcard, is entitled "Engrossed in Reading," after Georgii Erastov. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 6.75 x 9.75 in. / 480 pgs / 160 color / 60 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $85 ISBN: 9781909829121 PUBLISHER: Four Corners Books AVAILABLE: 2/19/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Greetings from the Barricades Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia
Published by Four Corners Books. By Tobie Mathew.
"Tobie Mathew’s magnificent book testifies to Russia’s unrepeatable two years of free-ranging political satire." –Donald Rayfield, Literary Review
Amid the chaos and violence of the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the Tsar’s opponents printed and distributed vast quantities of picture postcards. Easy to share, hide and smuggle, postcards were a way to beat the censor and spread a message of defiance.
Produced by a diverse set of revolutionaries, liberals and opportunists, the content of these cards is equally wide-ranging: from satirical caricatures directed against the government to rare photographs of revolutionary demonstrations. Many of the cards are darkly humorous, combining laughter with a sense of raw indignation at the injustices of Imperial Russia.
Assembled by Tobie Mathew, a writer and historian specializing in Russian graphic art and propaganda, Greetings from the Barricades is the first major study of the design, production and distribution of these cards, featuring more than 200 images. Together, they form a rich body of political art that illustrates the danger of opposing the regime during this turbulent era.
