The Desirable Things of Ogoniok: The Material Face of a Soviet Illustrated Magazine from Stalin to Brezhnev

This article examines the popular Soviet illustrated magazine Ogoniok as a site that provoked, negotiated, and exposed consumer desire in post-World War II USSR. It argues that Ogoniok was an important medium that produced and reflected cultural fantasies of material possessions in Soviet society. The article identifies and describes changes in the principles of visual representation of material objects in the magazine, and interprets them as an evidence of changes in the social form of the Soviet commodity. Finally, it analyzes the visual form of Soviet commodity and aims to understand the social relations that encapsulated Soviet commodity-value.