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As part of the Children of the Revolution project, marking the 20th Anniversary of 1989, over 250 political posters relating to democratic change in Europe are now available online at the V&A Museum website. According to the curators, Lithuanian collection of posters (around 30) makes visually one of the strongest part of the whole.

David Crowley, Royal College of Art: "The events of 1989 to 1991 in Central and Eastern Europe which led to the end of Moscow’s domination of the region and, ultimately, to the dismantling of the Soviet Union itself, were recorded in close detail. Photographers and TV crews were on hand to capture the smoky meetings of dissidents, the massive demonstrations which filled the squares of Prague, Budapest and Bucharest and linked the Soviet Baltic republics in 1989 and the cheerful queues of voters in the first free elections in the months that followed. At the same time, designers produced dozens of posters to record injustice and 'blank spots' in official history, as well as to encourage people to join in the task of creating democracy.

Much of the V&A's collection presented here was gathered by curator Margaret Timmers in Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989. She collected posters directly from their designers as well as gathering ephemera from the streets. These posters were augmented by others donated by anti-communist groups based in Britain, galleries and independent cultural organisations in Central and Eastern Europe, and journalists reporting events as they unfolded.

The result is one of the largest and most diverse collections of posters from Central and Eastern Europe produced during the final months of the Soviet Bloc and the early days of democracy. Although expressing their clear opposition to communist rule and the desire to ‘rejoin Europe’, these posters are indelibly marked with the experience of life in the Bloc. Poster designers had become skilled masters of metaphor and allegory, often to escape the censor's red pen. At the same time hand-rendered letters were used to signal the dignity of the individual in the face of bureaucracy. Many of the designs produced during these tumultuous years exploit these techniques. Others rework the imagery of Soviet power, sometimes obliterating its consecrated symbols.

Whilst these posters clearly capture the drama of history, what do they offer their viewers today? Certainly they can help us better understand attitudes and views found in these independent Central and Eastern European states today. Traces of the vigorous nationalism which shapes much political life are found in the array of symbols on display, many of which had once been prohibited under the communist authorities. Others remind us of the respect for the rights of the individual on which democracy depends, a value which is still much defended by democrats in post-communist Europe today."

To view the collection online, go to Search the Collections and type "Pro-democracy poster" into the search box.