Dmitri Moor (Russian, 1883-1946)

Dmitrii Moor was one of the main founders of Soviet political poster design. His posters and illustrations served as an important weapon of Bolshevik class warfare. Moor’s early political posters were allegorical, often including images of the grim reaper and monstrous dragons signifying capitalism. Moor produced many anti-religious works, subverting the visual vocabulary of traditional icon painting to create critical images that were accessible to a semi-literate readership (for a broad selection of Moor’s works of this kind, see our online exhibition Early Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda: 1921–1931). The artist was strongly influenced by the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus (Munich, 1896–1944; 1954–1964) and its leading cartoonist, the Norwegian artist Olaf Leonhard Gulbransson (1873–1958). Aside from satirical art, Moor also created posters for advertisement, cinema, and concerts, as well as book illustrations.

Biography:

Moor was born as Dmitrii Stakhievich Orlov in the southwestern Russian town of Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossack region, to a family of mining engineers. His schooldays were spent in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv, and finally in Moscow, where his family moved in 1898. Between 1902 and 1906 Orlov studied physics and mathematics at Moscow University, then transferred to the law program. While at university, he met revolutionary-minded peers and took part in the December 1905 uprising in Moscow. He also produced satirical sketches of czarist ministers for local papers. In 1910, Moor studied art at the private studio school of Pyotr Kelin (1874–1946).

Beginning in 1908, Moor’s satirical drawings were published in many periodicals, including the satirical journal Budil’nik (Alarm Clock), and newspapers including Russkoe Slovo (Russian Word) and Utro Rossii (Morning of Russia). The artist’s first caricatures were published under the pseudonym “Dor,” derived from the first letter of his first name and the first two letters of his surname. Influenced by the principal characters in Friedrich Schiller’s 1781 play Die Räuber (The Robbers)—the brothers Karl and Franz Moor—the artist adopted the name “Moor.” Over the course of the Russian Civil War (1918–1921), Moor created political posters for the Politupravlenie Revvoensoveta (Political Department of the Revolutionary Military Council) as well as for the ROSTA (Russian Telegraph Agency) Windows. He was also involved in the decoration of the first agit-trains (agitational trains), a new form of propaganda-distribution.

Moor worked as a caricaturist for many important newspapers, including Pravda (Truth), Izvestiia (News), and Komsomol’skaia Pravda (Komsomol Truth). In 1922, he became one of the founders of the satirical magazine Krokodil (Crocodile).

Moor was also a leading figure in Soviet art education. He taught at VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN (Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops/The Higher State Art and Technical Institute) between 1922 and 1930; at the Moskovskii poligraficheskii institut (Moscow Institute of Printing Trades) between 1930 and 1932; and at the Institut im. V.I. Surikova (Surikov State Art Institute) between 1939 and 1943.

Moor received wide acclaim and state accolades, including the distinction of Zasluzhennyi deiatel' iskusstv (Honored Art Worker). From  1931, he headed the poster department at the Gosudarstvennaia Akademiia iskussstv (State Academy of Fine Arts) and the poster section of MOSSKh (Moscow Regional Union of Soviet Artists). In addition to publishing numerous articles on the development of the Soviet political posters, the autobiographical essay “Ia-Bolshevik!” (I am Bolshevik!) was posthumously published in an eponymous volume of essays in 1967.

Key Sources (chronological):

Polonsky, Viacheslav. Russkii revoliutsionnyi plakat (Russian Revolutionary Poster). Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1925.

Kaufman, R.S. Dmitrii Stakhievich Moor. Moscow: Izogiz, 1937.

Ioffe, M. Dmitrii Stakhievich Moor (1883-1946). Moscow-Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1948.

Butnik-Siversky, B.S. Sovetskii plakat epokhi grazhdanskoi voiny, 1918–1921 (Soviet Posters of the Civil War Period, 1918–1921). Moscow: Vsesoiuznaia knizhnaia palata, 1960.

Moor, D.S.  Ia-bol’shevik! (I am Bolshevik). Collection of essays. Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1967.

Sviridova, I.A., ed. Dmitrii Moor. Al’bom satiricheskikh risunkov (Album of Satirical Drawings).  Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1987.  

White, Stephen. The Bolshevik Poster. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988.

Posters: 1919

Smert’ mirovomu imperializmu (Death to World Imperialism!), 1919
Lithograph
42 x 28 1/8” (106 x 71.4 cm)

Tovarishchi musul’mane (Comrades Muslims), 1919.
Lithograph
39 1/4 x 27” (99.7 x 68.6 cm)

Petrograd ne otdadim! (We will not Surrender Petrograd!), 1919
Lithograph
41 15/16 x 27 11/16” (106.5 x 70.3 cm)

Tsarskie polki i Krasnaia Armiia. Za chto srazhalis’ prezhde. Za chto srazhaiutsia teper’ (The Tsarist Regiments and the Red Army. What you were Fighting Before. What you are Fighting Now), 1919
Lithograph
19 1/8 x 27 5/16” (48.6 x 69.4 cm)

Sovetskaia Rossiia—osazhdennyi lager’. Vse na oboronu! (Soviet Russia is like a Besieged Camp. All on Defense!), 1919
Lithograph
35 5/8 x 26 5/8” (90.5 x 67.6 cm)

Ukhodiashchaia shliakhta… Prokliat’e i smert’ naemnym ubiitsam! (The Departing Gentry…Damnation and Death to the Assassins!), 1919
Lithograph
40 1/2 x 26 1/2” (102.9 x 67.3 cm)

Posters: 1920

Chertova kukla (The Devil’s Puppet), 1920
Lithograph
27 1/4 x 17 3/4” (69.2 x 45.1 cm)
Note: Baron Pyotr N. Wrangel (Petr Vrangel; 1878–1928) was a White Army general and commanding officer of the anti-Bolshevik White Guards during the Civil War years. In this poster, Moor’s red cavalryman uncloaks Baron Wrangel, exposing his clandestine support from foreign powers including British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French military commander Foch, and others.

Oktiabr’ 1917-oktiabr’ 1920: Da zdravstvuet vsemirnyi Krasnyi Oktiabr’! (October 1917–October 1920: Long Live the Worldwide Red October!), 1920
Lithograph
27 1/4 x 41 5/8” (69.2 x 105.7 cm)

Vrangel’ eshche zhiv, dobei ego bez poshchady (Wrangel is still Alive! Finish him off without Mercy! ), 1920
Lithograph
27 x 19 5/8” (68.6 x 49.8 cm)
Note: Baron Pyotr N. Wrangel (Petr Vrangel; 1878–1928) was a White Army general and commanding officer of the anti-Bolshevik White Guards during the Civil War years. Wrangel is depicted in the lower section of the poster together with other White Russian Generals Anton Dinikin (1872–1947), Nikolai Yuidenich (1862–1933), and Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak (1874–1920). Wrangel’s outstretched arm reaches from the Crimea to the Don Basin, Russia’s productive industrial center. Above, a Red Army soldier raises a sword. This poster was printed in an edition of 65,000, the largest print of any Soviet poster during the Civil War period.

Nakanune vsemirnoi revoliutsii (On the Eve of the World Revolution), 1920
Lithograph
43 x 28 3/4” (109.2 x 73 cm)

Kazak, ty bil tsarei bil i boiar, sbros’ boiarina Vrangelia v Chernoe more (Cossacks, you Beat the Tsars and the Boyars in the Past, and now you should Throw Wrangel into the Black Sea), 1920
Lithograph
28 1/8 x 21 1/4” (71.4 x 54 cm)
Note: Cossacks (from Turkic kazak, “adventurer” or “free man”) were mercenary, military warriors. Cossacks united in the fifteenth century as a self-governing military group that was loyal only to the Russian Tsar. They settled in six different areas: the Don, the Greben in Caucasia, the Yaik, near the Ural River, the Volga, the Dnieper and the area west of the Dnieper. During the Russian Civil War (1918–1921), the Cossacks were divided. Those in southern Russia formed the core of the White armies there, while some Cossacks (so-called Red Cossacks) became the biggest cavalry formation of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government of Ukraine.

Kuda devaet khleb Vrangel? (Where does Wrangel Send the Bread?), 1920
Lithograph
18 3/8 x 27 3/8” (46.7 x 69.5 cm)
Note: This caricature shows Baron Wrangel of the White Army giving Russian bread to the Entente.

Ptashki tsarskie (The Birds of the Tsar), 1917–1922
Lithograph
27 3/16 x 20 3/16” (69 x 51.3 cm)

Popy pomogaiut kapitalu i meshaiut rabochemu: Proch ’s dorogi! (Priests Help Capital but Interfere with the Worker: Get out of the Way!), 1920
Lithograph
29 7/8 x 42 5/8” (75.9 x 108.3 cm)

Vrangel idet na nas! Chernyi razboinik-baron khochet zakhvatit’ khleb, ugol’ i neft’, rabochikh i krest’ian. Ne dadim vragu zadushit’ nas golodom! Krov’iu dobytoe—krov’iu otstoim! (Wrangel is Approaching! The robber baron wants to seize our grain, coal and oil, workers and peasants. Let’s not let the enemy choke us with hunger! What was produced with blood—we’ll defend with blood!), c. 1920
Lithograph
21 x 13 7/8” (53.4 x 35.2 cm)

Da zdravstvuet III International (Long Live the Third International), 1920
Lithograph
42 1/2 x 27” (108 x 68.6 cm)

Kazak, u tebia odna doroga s trudovoi Rossiei (Cossack, You Have One Path with the Working People of Russia), 1920
Lithograph
27 1/4 x 21” (69.3 x 53.3 cm)

Prezhde: Odin s soshkoi, semero s lozhkoi; Teper’: Kto ne rabotaet,tot ne est (Before: One with the Plough; Seven with a Spoon; Now: He who does not Work Shall not Eat), 1920
Lithograph
18 x 13” (45.7 x 33 cm)

Narodam Kavkaza (To the People of the Caucasus), 1920
Lithograph
27 11/16 x 31 1/4” (70.3 x 79.4 cm)

Krasnyi soldat na fronte ne obut, ne odet. Otkryvaite sunduki .Otdavaite vse, chto mozhete vashemu zashchitniku. Ne vyderzhit on, --pogibnete i vy. Na pomoshch’ Krasnoi Armii! (The Red Soldier at the Front is without Footwear and Clothing. Open your Chests. Give Everything you can to Your Defender. If he [a defender] won’t be able to overcome it, then you’ll also perish. Help the Red Army!), 1920
Lithograph
32 5/8 x 22 3/8” (82.9 x 56.8 cm)

Krasnyi podarok belomu panu (A Red Present to the White Pan), 1920
Lithograph
32 1/4 x 23 1/2” (81.9 x 59.7 cm)

Kazak, ty s kem? S nami ili s nimi? (Cossack, who are you with? With us or with them?), 1920
Lithograph
31 1/2 x 23 1/8” (80 x 58.7 cm)
Note: The Cossack stands in the middle, flanked by Red Army soldiers at left and a group including the Baron Wrangel (the Polish ‘pan”) and pomeshchik (a landowner) at right, who together represent the forces of the White Army and its international supporters.

Trud (Labor), 1920
Lithograph
27 5/8 x 21” (70.2 x 53.3 cm)
Note: The oppression of workers by landowners, the church, and the military is denounced in this poster, which calls upon all laborers to join the Red Army to defeat their capitalist exploiters. 

Ty l’esh’ krov’ za raboche-krest’ianskuiu  revoliutsiiu. Rabochie i krest’iane lishaiut sebia neobkhodimogo, iz poslednikh sredstv daiut tebe odezhdu i obuv’ (You’re spilling your blood for the Workers' and Peasants’ Revolution. Workers and peasants deprive themselves of all the necessities, providing you with clothes and shoes, using their last means), 1920
Lithograph
22 1/2 x 30 1/2” (57.2 x 77.5 cm)

1-oe Maia, Vserossiiskii subbotnik (First of May, All-Russian Voluntary Work Day), 1920
Lithograph
33 x 21 5/8” (83.8 x 54.9 cm)

Poslednii, reshitel’nyi boi (The Last Decisive Battle), 1920
Lithograph
42 x 26 1/2” (106.7 x 67.3 cm)

Kazak! Tebia tolkaiut na strashnoe, krovavoe delo protiv tvoego naroda. Kazak! Povoroti konia i srazi svoego nastoiashchego vraga—darmoeda (Cossack! You are forced to get involved in a bloody war against your own folks. Cossack! Turn your horse around and strike your real enemy—a parasite), c. 1920
Lithograph
28 x 20 7/8” (71.1 x 53 cm)

Posters: 1921

Pomogi (Help), 1921.
Lithograph
41 x 26 1/2” (104.1 x 67.3 cm)
Note: This visually bold, iconic poster was a plea for international relief from the Povolzhye famine that devastated Russia in 1921–1922.  It was reproduced frequently in in European publications of the 1920s and 1930s.

Krasnyi strazh ne khochet krovi, no stoit on nagotove (The Red Guard does not Want Blood, but Stands Always Ready), 1921
Lithograph
42 x 27 7/8” (106.7 x 70.8 cm)

Posters: 1930

Khleb-nasha sila. Interventam-mogila. Sobirai urazhai (Bread is Our Strength. Death to the Occupants. Collect the Harvest), 1931
Lithograph
39 3/4 x 27 1/4” (101 x 69.2 cm)

My byli stranoi sokhi, my stali stranoi traktora-kombaina (We were a Country of the Plow, We Became a Country of the Tractor), 1934
Lithograph
34 1/2 x 23 5/8" (87.6 x 60 cm)

Journals

Drawing for the journal Krokodil (Crocodile): God–Capital, 1923 or after
Ink and pencil on paper
10 x 8” (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
Inscribed: recto (pencil): Black 5 1/2 square, for journal Crocodile no. 2 / to create by January 2
Note: The satirical journal Krokodil (Crocodile), edited by V. Kataev and Kukryniksy, was published in Moscow from 1923–1954.

Attributed to Dmitrii Moor
Krokodil: ezhenedel’noe prilozhenie  Rabochei gazety. Rabochaia gazeta  podpisyvaetsia i chitaetsia sotniami tysiach rabochikh i rabotnits (Crocodile: A Weekly Supplement to the  Rabochaia gazeta   [Workers’ Newspaper].  Workers’ Newspaper  is Subscribed to and Read by Hundreds of Thousands of Workers and Women Workers), 1925
Lithograph
21 x 28” (53.3 x 71.1 cm)

Cover of Daesh’ (Let’s Produce), no. 1, 1929
Lithograph
11 7/8 x 9” (30.2 x 22.9 cm)

Drawing for the journal Bezbozhnik (Atheist): Virgin Mary, c. 1928
Ink and pencil on paper
10 1/2 x 10” (26.7 x 25.4 cm)
Inscriptions: recto, lower right (pencil): Papa rimskii, podnimaiushchii sviashchennyi “pokhod” protiv  kollektivizatsii, govorit s kulakom (Pope of Rome, initiating a campaign against collectivization, speaks to kulak via Virgin Mary: “I have nothing to do with this, this is what the Virgin Mary wants”)
Note: In 1922, the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in Moscow began publication of the anti-religious journal Bezbozhnik (Godless or Atheist). In 1923, the journal was renamed Bezbozhnik u stanka (Atheist at the Workbench), the title under which it appeared until 1931. For more on these publications, see our online exhibition Early Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda: 1921–1931.

“Collectivization” was a policy adopted by the Soviet government between c. 1928 and 1933, intended to transform traditional agriculture and to reduce the economic power of the kulaks (prosperous peasants). Under collectivization the peasantry was forced to give up their individual farms and join kolkhoz (large collective farms).

Cover of Daesh’ (Let’s Produce), no. 11, 1929
Lithograph
12 x 9” (30.5 x 22.9 cm)

Drawing for the journal Bezbozhnik (Atheist), c.1928
Ink on paper
11 1/8 x 8” (28.2 x 20.3 cm)

Drawing for the journal Bezbozhnik u stanka, no.10 (1924), p. 19: Na Moskvu! Popovskie polki “Sviatoi bogoroditsy.” (Towards Moscow! Regiment of Priests, [dedicated to] Mother of God), c. 1924
Ink and cut paper on paper
7 1/8 x 12 1/8” (18.1 x 30.8 cm)
Inscriptions: verso (pencil): B. u s. No.10, 24 g. str.19

The works shown here represent only a selection from the collection, please contact us for further inquiry.