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Izostat (All-Union Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy)

Изостат (Всесоюзный институт изобразительной статистики советского строительства и хозяйства)

Izostat (All-Union Institute of Pictorial Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy of the Central Administration of Economic Accounting) was formed in 1931. Its offices were located in Moscow at the State Planning Committee (Gosplan). At the time of its formation, there were two hubs for infographics established in the Soviet Union. There was the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Otdel izobrazitel’noi statistiki (Department of Pictorial Statistics) of Lenizogiz (Leningrad Fine Arts Department of the State Publishing House), and there was Izostat in Moscow. From 1931 to 1934, Izostat worked with the Austrian political economist Otto Neurath (1882-1945) who developed the Wiener Bildstatistik the ISOTYPE pictorial statistics method that was a forerunner to the modern Isotype movement. By 1938 most of Neurath’s ideas were discarded by the Soviet institute, and in 1940, Izostat was dissolved.

Sources & Citations

Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine: 1932-1933; report to Congress. (1988). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Research Guide to the Russian and Soviet Censuses edited by Ralph S. Clem (1984).
Ullman, M. B., & United States. (1959). The 1939 U.S.S.R. census of population: Organization and methodology: with notes on plans for the 1959 census of population. Washington, D.C.: Foreign Manpower Research Office, Bureau of the Census.
avantgarde.center.com (Izostat history)
mcbcollection.com/visualization-of-data-in-the-soviet-union (Izostat history through posters)