Znachki are small souvenir pins that became ubiquitous during the post-war Soviet decades of 1950s-80s. These little pins served many purposes: they were purchased as souvenirs, given as tokens of friendship or cultural diplomacy, presented as awards in competitions, and worn to display the achievement of a distinct professional status or to signal membership in a particular group. Znachki appeared as a sanctioned way of expressing Communist spirit and state patriotism, and later in response to the rise of foreign and domestic tourism in the Soviet Union. Znachki also readily served to assert regional, more local histories and identities. There were thousands of different znachki produced during the late Soviet period, and they are still avidly collected and traded today.
Introduction
The Russian term znachki means “small signs.” This exhibit explores the ways in which the humble znachok communicates a vast range of different meanings.
People wear them on their lapels, distribute them around, and these disseminate revolutionary concepts and icons . . . These badges impregnate the microstructure of everyday consciousness and expand the circuit of the ‘universal connection’ of Communism down in the lower depths, in the most diversified zone of life. These are the smallest meaningful units of Communism, tokens that signify and assign Communism to the people. Vladislav Todorov, Red Square, Black Square: Organon for Revolutionary Imagination, 1994
The znachok is a versatile object. As a souvenir, it is something like a refrigerator magnet or a postcard that you buy and keep for yourself — the znachok shows where you’ve been. As the object of collectors’ interest, the znachok is not unlike the American baseball card, traded as well as purchased. As an expression of advocacy and pride, the znachok recalls the American button pin, although the znachok is most like what we would call a “lapel pin.”
The znachok is also a democratic object. Back in the Soviet day, znachki were inexpensive, produced in great quantities at factories and sold at every kiosk. And each znachok stands for something in which all can share, whether it is the Soviet space program, military victories, sports competitions and clubs, cultural heroes, cities, cultural monuments, anniversary celebrations, and Communist events such as a political congress. A znachok spread the word and shared the joy.
An individual znachok pin takes a particular shape and size, and on the front side it bears an image, usually in relief, along with lettering. On the back is the pin and perhaps, a stamp identifier for the factory where the znachok was made.
There is a particular rhetoric associated with Soviet znachki. Despite their diminutive size, it has often been declared that we can learn from znachki about the entire history of the Soviet period and the geography of the USSR. Some go further, pronouncing znachki as akin to a historical chronicle in miniature, and a mirror of human life. Perhaps this is why znachki can be an object of passionate attention for some.
In Western tourist’s descriptions of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, there is invariably a mention of eager little boys clamoring for “chewing gum” on Red Square and offering to trade znachki for this treat. Now those little boys are middle-aged men who still love znachki. One Russian newspaper from Samara declared in 2006 that the usual collector of znachki is “a man of 30-50 years, perfectly normal, but capable of becoming engrossed and goal-oriented. Such a man is educated, without harmful habits, and as a rule, monied. He is a researcher, since behind the collection stands an enormous layer of culture. The point for him is not in accumulating the znachki, but rather in developing the ability to distinguish them by theme.” Newspapers tell of provincial collectors who have built a trove for forty years and now own several thousand znachki. One of the largest znachki collections in Russia has 50,000 items.
There is still an active znachki collector culture in today’s Russia. The proper Russian term for the study and collection of znachki is faleristika, a pursuit not unlike collecting stamps or coins, but more particular. Falerist is a term from ancient Rome, referring to a practice whereby soldiers received pins to mark their participation in a battle. Russian znachki collectors used to gather in public places like parks for swapping and comparing znachki, displaying their znachki mounted on felt boards and covered with plastic, carrying these boards around in briefcases. Now most of the buying and selling of znachki happens at the Vernisazh and a few other markets around Moscow.
Most collectors began amassing znachki during their late-Soviet childhoods and continued into adulthood. Many znachki collections are structured around a theme (for example, Moscow, Pushkin) or some other feature (for example, znachki using red enamel). Some collectors even work according to a hierarchy of multiple themes!
The post-Soviet period has brought an additional nostalgic energy to collecting znachki, which are no longer actively produced by the state and no longer available for purchase at newsstands and kiosks. In fact, znachki and other everyday artifacts from the post-war Soviet decades have not been properly researched or catalogued, until recently dismissed as lowly items of mass culture.
Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh)
Our first example is a znachok that celebrates the USSR Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh). The Exhibition, which featured an elaborate pavilion for each Soviet republic and a flashy Friendship of Nations fountain, was opened in 1939. VDNKh was closed during the war, reopening in 1954 so that the project could be fully realized. New pavilions representing specific industries were added. The territory of VDNKh has been extensively renovated in the 2010s and now functions as a more general-purpose exhibition center.
The lettering on the znachok spells out VDNKh SSSR in Russian; so it conveys the name of the exhibition, but also specifies the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). This znachok depicts the famous socialist realist sculpture by Vera Mukhina, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, which was placed just outside the VDNKh entrance gates. Standing nearly 80 feet tall, Mukhina’s sculpture was originally created for the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair. Her two figures represent industry and agriculture, holding aloft a hammer and sickle, symbols of Communism and the Soviet Union, equal in strength and importance, united in their zeal and forward movement. This dynamic image is also familiar to all Russians as the logo of the Moscow Film Studio, Mosfilm, akin to the Columbia Pictures and M-G-M logos. Mukhina’s sculpture is most often pictured from the side, but the znachok presents the figures high up and head on, striding triumphantly towards the viewer.
The sculptural figures on the znachok are rendered in silver-colored metal relief with a background that suggests marble and gives the relief a greater depth. The whole is framed in gold, using an elegant scalloped industrial design around the edges. While conveying a sense of weighty import, the gold and silver are also bright, shiny, and decorative.
The Motherland Calls!
Our second znachok honors the city of Volgograd, called Stalingrad until it was renamed in 1961. During the Second World War, when the Nazis invaded Russia, Stalingrad was the site of long resistance during the prolonged 1942 Battle of Stalingrad. The city was reduced to rubble and there were well over one million casualties, perhaps closer to two million.
The znachok depicts “The Motherland Calls!,” an enormous scupture almost twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, which stands on a hill called the Mamayev Kurgan. The sculpture, designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich and Nikolai Nikitin, was completed in 1967 and is part of a larger memorial complex. The allegorical female figure raises a sword high with one arm and raises the other arm dramatically to summon her people to battle. (Unfortunately, the image on this znachok cuts off most of her sword and thus mutes its visual effect.
Like the figures in Mukhina’s sculpture, “The Motherland Calls!” is socialist realist in style, but owes a lot to classical statues from ancient Greece in the use of effects such as flowing garments to augment elemental human forms. The classical-style banner across the lower part of the znachok proclaims the name of the city Volgograd.
The znachok takes the approximate shape of a shield, like the escutcheon in a coat of arms. At the upper left is a military medal, an abstracted image with a red ribbon and five-pointed star. The emphasis is not on the rank or designation of a particular medal or hero, therefore, but rather on the many heroes who fought at Stalingrad.
The znachok is of a steely gray, with a dark and murky background that suggests stark privation or threatening darkness. In shape, the znachok has a rough-cut quality, despite the classical allusions of the image. As if in dialogue, the relief image gives greater depth to the whole and provides the burnished dimensionality of the star and the woman’s body.
More Examples
Like the Volgograd znachok, this 1945 Victory znachok is shaped like the shield in a coat of arms, rendered in white enamel with gold detailing. Victory Day was celebrated on May 9 every year during the post-war Soviet decades. Ways of celebrating and commemorating the end of the Great Patriotic War have been reinstated as public tradition in Putin’s Russia.
The znachok’s image is a naïve-style flower, whose thin stem looks like a child’s drawing, yet it manages to support the comparatively much weightier blossom. The lettering underneath the blossom reads simply “1945,” since nothing more needs to be said in order for the Soviet viewer to understand the reference. The shield shape frames and guards the flower, which is itself composed of four distinct framings, one of which is a five-pointed red Kremlin star. Framed inside the star is a relief image of the Kremlin clock-tower in gold on a bright blue background, which lies at the heart of the znachok and its Soviet wearer.
Everyone who experienced the late Soviet period is familiar with the Baby Lenin znachok, perhaps 1” by 1” in size and featuring a round photographic image of Lenin as a cherubic, curly-haired Victorian-looking child inside a red lucite or plastic star. (Some versions, like the one pictured here, used a gold-colored relief of Lenin’s infant head rather than a photograph.) Lenin was indeed born in 1870, when Victoria was on the British throne. Baby Lenin znachki were worn between 1922 and 1991 by Soviet elementary-school students in the Young Pioneers, a mass Communist youth organization. The other znachok is another member pin for the Pioneers, showing the adult Lenin in profile against a flaming star in the background. The banner reads, “Always ready!” – the official motto of the Young Pioneers.
This oval silvery-colored znachok depicts the famous head of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s national poet. The letters that form a kind of halo around his head read “1799 Aleksander Sergeevich Pushkin 1837,” the poet’s birth and death dates. The bottom half of the znachok shows the classical lyre and laurel branches, symbols of the sun god Apollo from ancient Greece, often used in reference to poets and poetry. The image of Pushkin shows him with a wistfully tilted head, romantically tousled hair, and a loosened cravat, looking off to the side and thinking about… his muse, probably. It is not clear which historical or imagined image of the poet is used for the znachok, but it most closely resembles the Pushkin statue in front of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. This znachok does not appear to be connected with a particular Pushkin anniversary, but it is always a good time to commemorate Pushkin, and there are many different Pushkin-themed znachki! There were complaints from the Russian population, however, in 1999, when many Russians felt the state had not produced a sufficient number of commemorative znachki for such an important occasion.
Although there are many different animals and birds depicted in Russian folklore and Russian crafts, sometimes a bird is just a bird, and not all znachki carried a political or cultural message. This multi-colored enamel znachok shows a perky shrike, the Russian term for which (zhulan) is written at the bottom, by the bird’s foot.
Origins
The humble znachok is descended from grander “marks” of special distinction and affiliation such as medals and badges, prizes and orders, heraldry, emblems, and insignia. Beginning in the Middle Ages, religious-themed pins were worn by pilgrims; others were worn by tradesmen from guilds to show their professional status.
Peter the Great established a Russian Table of Ranks in 1722, which proved a major milestone in Russian culture. The table fixed the social standing of civil, military, and court appointees according to a hierarchical system of fourteen different levels, and remained in place up until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Nineteenth-century Russian literature satirizes the obsession with rank that resulted from Peter the Great’s decision, permeating and poisoning Russian society. In Nikolai Gogol’s famous 1836 story “The Nose,” the unfortunate Major Kovalyov wakes up one morning to find that his nose has disappeared from his face. In pursuit, Kovalyov spies the nose on Nevsky Prospect, but is hesitant to approach when he sees from the nose’s uniform and decorations that said nose holds a higher rank than does he, Kovalyov. In Anton Chekhov’s 1895 story “Anna on the Neck,” Anna’s husband is expecting to receive the Imperial Order of Saint Anna in recognition of his distinguished career in the imperial bureaucracy. But the story’s title is a play on words, since the errant behavior of his wife Anna makes her something of a millstone around her husband’s neck.
With the rise of “jubilee culture” in late imperial Russia, souvenirs of national holidays and anniversaries in the form of badges or medals like the earlier Pushkin znachok became more prevalent. This use of proto-znachki augments the primary function of badges and medals, which is to distinguish their wearer, and assigns the opposite meaning, the sign of voluntary belonging and shared cultural values. At the same time, souvenirs such as znachki became possible only in the age of mass reproduction. In this sense, we might think about the znachok as a sign whose meaning has drifted from highly particular and hierarchically determined identities to more open, more generally expressed affiliations.
After the Revolution, the Soviet government commenced establishing, documenting, and awarding all manner of prizes and orders of its own. One of the most famous is the medal for the “Mother-Hero,” a woman who has raised more than ten children, first awarded in 1944.
It is not a coincidence that znachki seem like toys for children, since from the start, Soviet znachki were associated with the youth movement of Khrushchev period. The emphasis on local history and local pride, the heritage movement that sought a revaluation of Russian architecture and monuments, all were timely for the rise of the znachok.
During the post-war Soviet period, plans for production of new znachki had to be approved by the appropriate higher authorities, but in practice this was not always feasible. Znachki had so thoroughly infiltrated Soviet life and so many different organizations were ordering them for so many purposes, there was no single central source for documenting all existing znachki. The central state newspaper Pravda even expressed concerns over the risk of trivializing Soviet culture by producing znachki for every imaginable group, anniversary, or completed project.
Znachki are made of cheap metal (brass alloy) suitable for mass production. Until the end of the Soviet period, znachki were minted like money at the primary Moscow and Leningrad facilities. There were perhaps another 250 places producing znachki during the Soviet period, among them smaller factories in provincial cities. There were tens of thousands of different znachki, many of them produced in large numbers.
At one point, Pravda expressed concerns about the overuse of valuable raw materials to produce znachki. Today is a different story. Now the state produces commemorative objects such as znachki only for major events such as the Olympic games. There also exist small businesses that can produce znachki on order, in small batches.
At the Market
At the Vernisazh, there are many different wooden stands and little stores that sell znachki, and also medals, as shown here. Yet it is not always easy for the would-be buyer to know what they are looking at. Sometimes authentic znachki from the post-war Soviet period look a bit shabby, their enamel colors faded with time. The znachki hunter may also encounter careful reproductions of period znachki, produced by present-day collectors and specialists, as well as newly minted mass produced copies of historical znachki. Some znachki are now produced in China, others are still produced in Russia. A znachki hunter who is properly informed will know to check the back of the znachok for a factory stamp or possibly an indication of a price.
The Vernisazh also sells “wholesale parts” for znachki – the simple pin and backing, for example. The picture here shows boxes and bags of small, cheaply produced basic components of znachki or perhaps even military decorations. This was intriguing. Who would buy these in order to assemble a faux-Soviet metal artifact? This question was more puzzling than, for example, wondering who would buy the plain basic wood matryoshki, decorative spoons, and children’s toys that were also for sale in large quantities at the Vernisazh, since we met artisans who worked with these “blanks.” The Vernisazh ran the gamut: rare or even one-of-a-kind treasures, counterfeit versions, imitations, reproductions, and new spins on traditional favorites, both mass produced and artisanal.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, znachki have been part of a Western taste for Sovietiana, along with Soviet military-wear and equipment, propaganda posters, and vintage electric appliances. In the picture to the right, a mannequin is posed just outside a gift shop wearing camouflage pants and a “telnyashka” striped Russian navy shirt with accompanying blue Russian military beret. Next to her is a black felt board displaying a wealth of znachki and some button pins (a Western import). It isn’t possible to make out the individual znachki in the photo, but close examination shows that the znachki are of all different shapes and sizes, and that there is a great variety, all mixed up. Together the mannequin and the motley assortment of znachki send a friendly and non-intimidating signal to the inexperienced Vernisazh shopper, especially those from abroad.
Elsewhere, the Dry Bridge Market in Tbilisi does a brisk business in znachki. This market has some wooden stalls, but many vendors simply arrange their wares on a ground blanket, often creating patterns from the hallucinatory proliferation of object types.
As shown in this picture, znachki are well represented among the artifacts of Soviet life on offer, along with home libraries of Russian-language books and record albums. All of the former Soviet republics and satellite states are still awash in znachki, postcards, and other mass culture Soviet souvenirs. A display like these znachki reminds us that, like people, objects can be displaced, in search of a new place. Is the sale of these inexpensive old Soviet znachki in any way similar to the sale of pre-revolutionary Russian valuables by aristocrats in exile?
At the Vernisazh, we made the acquaintance of Ivan, a retired military engineer who now works as a consultant on non-firing weapons for sellers at the Vernisazh. He also has vast knowledge of Soviet znachki, which he sells out of his own wooden stall. He declined, however, to be photographed by us. Ivan showed us many treasures, including a rare early znachok from 1927 commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, as well as znachki awarded for finishing Moscow State University with fields of study indicated by specific symbols.
Ivan showed us forerunners of the znachok — silver tsarist-era pendants that identify professions — farmer, fisherman, hunter, tailor, traveling merchant. Ivan was selling the pendants for 5000 rubles each — $80-90 — but would part with the entire set with a 20% discount. Ivan insisted the pendants were worth much more. We were tempted and lingered, but in the end, we decided not to buy.
The Znachok Lately
There are now upscale new versions of the old Soviet znachok for sale in post-Soviet souvenir shops. For example, Heart of Moscow makes pins in the znachok style. But these refer to the Russian avant-garde, to artists such as Kazimir Malevich, who in the late 1920s created painted figures such as the one shown here on the lower left. The work of these avant-garde artists was suppressed during the Soviet period, so producing this contemporary set is both a meaningful commemorative act and a revitalization of an existing tradition. The new znachki sell from the heartofmoscow.ru on-line store for 300 rubles apiece, about $5. We would guess that the cost of a new znachok during the Soviet period was comparatively much, much lower. Still, $5 is a nice price for a tourist.
Sculptor Boris Orlov was an “unofficial” Soviet artist during the 1970s-80s, participating in a radical new style called “Sots-Art,” which incorporated the iconography of Soviet political and military life into collages or other mixed pieces that created a destabilizing, estranging effect. Sots-Art is the Soviet version of pop art.
Orlov’s 1988 “Bouquet in Imperial Style” brings together the red star, hammer and sickle, military medals along with other other decorations, and official banners. The title of the work is ironic, first because the Soviet empire was coming apart at the seams in 1988, but also because the Soviet state was officially anti-imperial. While it would have been shocking to see Soviet symbols reproduced in such a context in 1988, the design of Orlov’s bouquet would likely give the contemporary viewer little discomfort, so familiar has Soviet retro nostalgia become, both inside and outside of present-day Russia. In fact, you could return from the Vernisazh with your purchases and deconstruct them into your own post-Soviet collage!
Coincidentally, enamel pins similar in material, design, and aesthetic to Soviet znachki. Photos of these pins can be found all over platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. And yet, despite the overt similarities, the Western enamel pin does not seem to carry the same serious and sincere cultural meanings as the Soviet znachok. The znachok allowed its bearer to participate in a common project. The enamel pin makes a fashion statement or expresses a point of view — any will do. In the Western context today, pins are like “memes that you can wear.” Elsewhere, the pins are called wearable, affordable works of art. Somehow, they are both! But it is more challenging to characterize the nature of znachki in today’s Russia.
Sources
- Birgit Beumers, Pop Culture Russia! Media, Arts, and Lifestyle
- Julie A. Buckler and Emily D. Johnson, editors. Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe. Northwestern University Press, 2013. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8pzbhw.
- Michael Idov, Unsung Icons of Soviet Design
- N. Il’inskii, Geral’dika trudovoi slavy. Moscow, 1987 (2ndedition)
- Diane P. Koenker, Club Red: Vacation Travel and the Soviet Dream
- Cathleen S. Lewis, “From the Kitchen into Orbit” in Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture
- Ovsyannikov, Russian Folk Arts and Crafts
- Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin
