I was walking near my home when I saw this interesting mosiac propaganda. "слава труду" means "Glory to Labor" and is an old Soviet slogan. It's in a prominent area in the city, near public transportation. Is it to remind people of the honor and respect in work, encourage them to work harder, or to glorify the communist ideal of the worker who owns their labor? What does this mean to you in light of our readings?
It is an amazing photo, Dylan. Thank you for posting this! I am struck by the simplicity of the presentation, the way the side of a building holds the tiled letters like the title page of a book. I wonder what the building originally was. It is an incredible statement to find in the main area of the city as you mention. And it invites one to think about the representations of labor today, where one finds them, and how labor is celebrated or respected or not.
ReplyDeleteI was just wishing for more pictures on our blog! Thanks for bringing bits of Ukraine to us.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a minute to realize the shopfronts are murals. They're an interesting flavor paired with the slogan.
Explicit references to Labor definitely carry a lot of political connotations, it's hard to use the word without them. Seems like in the U.S., celebration/respect for labor has to take other figures. I guess there's the semi-sacrificial celebration of essential 'workers' in the pandemic to come back to: I've seen signs around town that recognize them explicitly.
Back to political connotations, it makes me think about the Labo(u)r parties of different nations. I don't know much about them as a whole, but I can see that the word is used with a positive and popular rhetorical bent in many countries, but not in the U.S.
I couldn't figure out how to post a picture in the replies, but there's a great weird sign from Juneau at Urgent Care's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Juneauurgentcare/
DeleteDavid, Feel free to post the image as a separate Blog post. And I agree, more images to share each other's parts of the world right now would be great to have on here. So yeah, Everyone, feel free to post quick images, events, discussions, etc. of interest on our blog (not just response papers).
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