[SOVIET RADIO – GRAPHIC DESIGN] Radiofront: zhurnal ODR i VTsSPS [Radio front: a magazine of the Society of the Friends of Radio and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions]. Vol. VI, no. 12 (1932); Vol. VIII, no. 22 (1934); vol. IX, nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9–10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17–18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 (1935); vol. XIV, no. 1 (1938).
Moscow: OGIZ–Moskovskii Rabochii, 1932–1938. Octavos (25 × 17.5 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers in various colors; ca. 80 pp. per issue (continuous annual pagination). Illustrations throughout from photographs, drawings, and technical plans. About very good; a few issues with light fraying and nicks to wrappers; occasional wear to spine strip; one issue with wrappers detached and chipped. Item #54711
A near complete run for the year 1935, as well as three additional issues, of this bi-weekly journal for amateur radio mechanics (or “radioliubiteli”) which replaced "Radio vsem" [Radio for everyone] in the years 1930–1941. The new name signaled both the “battle-ready” attitude of the first five-year plan (1928–1932) and a move toward the greater centralization of radio and greater state control of transmission. As in its predecessor publications, the majority of the issues were taken up with information on constructing radio sets with technical drawings, equations, and photographs of new technology. They also covered topics such as the use of radio in national defense, television technology, the twentieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, and audio-recording technology. The new publication also contained a “Radio-consultation” question and answer section for amateurs.
Initially a publication of the friends of radio of the USSR (Obshchestvo druzei radio, or ODR), the organization was dissolved in 1933 and taken over by the Komsomol (Soviet communist youth organization) due to the mistrust of the Soviet government toward the amateur radio mechanics who easily crossed international borders through radio transmission and often exhibited “antisocial behavior” by “clogging up the airwaves”. Later issues of this journal (after 1933) were published by the Committee for Soviet Radiofication.
See: Stephen Lovell, Russia in the Microphone Age: A History of Soviet Radio, 1919–1970.
As of August 2024, KVK and OCLC show copies at only two institutions in North America.
Price: €1,500.00