Picture Postcards and Lives Touched by Revolution, 1906–1917

Bringing a 'biography of things' approach to a selection of picture postcards, this article recovers fragments of the lives of obscure and ordinary people in Russia's era of revolutions. By focusing on how visual propaganda was produced and circulated, we reconstruct communications networks that spanned the globe and focus on the ways in which lives could be touched by continuous political upheaval and societal uncertainty. Finally, by undertaking a deep analysis of language and handwriting, the article foregrounds the emotional underpinnings of everyday communication in extraordinary times while also demonstrating the power of ephemeral sources at a time when archival research has become more difficult.