Alexander Nikolaevich Dobrov was a Soviet graphic artist who worked in the realm of poster design. From 1949 to 1954, Dobrov studied at the Academy of Arts of the Latvian SSR. By the mid-1950s, he was actively designing posters for the publishing houses of Sovietskii Khudozhnik (Soviet Artist), Izobrazitel’noe Iskusstvo (Fine Art Publishers), IzoGiz (State Publishing House of Fine Art), Plakat (All-Union Poster), and others. The artist also worked in the Visual Agitation Workshop of th...

Until World War II, Latvia had thriving publishing and printing industries. Between Soviet annexation in 1940 and the German occupation in 1941, Lativa's position as a European publishing hub drastically changed. Around 1940 Lativa's largest publisher, Liesma (Flame), was nationalized during Soviet annexation. The publisher became VAPP (Department of State Book Publishers and Polygraphic Enterprises) and was controlled as a state-run entity. From 1946-1964, VAPP was named Latgosizdat and in 1965, the publisher was re-named Liesma. It specialized in ...