Review: In 1939 and 1949 the museums and exhibit halls of the large and small Soviet cities held dozens of art exhibitions dedicated to the anniversaries of Stalin. Strictly aligned to the text of his canonized biography, they became an important element of jubilee celebrations, and simultaneously, a distinct culmination of visual representations of the chieftain, overcrowding the public space of every city of the country. The exhibitions resumed the results and outlined the future paths of development of the pictorial art of Staliniana. The article makes an attempt to review the common grounds the united the anniversary expositions, regardless their scale, presentability and venue. Special attention is given to correlation between verbal and visual texts, logics of structuring of a biographical narrative, methods of organization of dialogue with the audience, as well as forms of “dictate” over the creative process of Soviet artists. The source for this research became an extensive body of documents: brochures, catalogues, guides that accompanied such exhibitions and reflected their concept, logics, structure and communication objectives.  

Keywords: visual text, representation, anniversary, Stalin, leader, urban space, exhibition space, exposition, verbal text, biographical narrative