«Тени исчезают в полдень» или «С праздником, товарищи!»: визуализация памяти и забвения революции 1917 года в фотографиях журнала «Огонек»

Международный журнал исследований культуры. 2018. № 2. С. 137–151.

Saburova T.

Long shadow of the past (in the words of Aleida Assmann) darken the present, affecting our views, values, behavior. Cultural memory intertwined with social memory (for example, generational memory) being both stable and dynamic, is significant for societal life as a whole. Commemoration, as a part of the politics of history, has an impact on cultural memory, bringing to life some remembrances and erasing those which might be deemed uncomfortable or even “useless” for those caught up in the politics of history. This article examines the visualization of memory and of forgetting the Revolution of 1917 in one of the most popular Soviet weekly illustrated magazines - Ogonek, applying the concepts of cultural memory and social memory to the politics of history and commemoration. Photographs played an important role in the magazine, translating and transmitting the reigning ideology but also reflecting the search for artistic methods as well as the specifics of social consciousness at the time. How were photos used in commemorations of the Revolution of 1917? What visual image of the Revolution was constructed and how did it evolve from the 1920s to the 1990s? How did the memorialization (or “mummification”) of the Revolution manifest itself in the photographs published in Ogonek, transforming the “lived” memory into a mythological and “alien” past? This article shows the visual evolution of the memory of the Revolution into an anniversary celebration by which the past was to be replaced by the “Present” and “Future” and how photography was used to eliminate the “shadows of the past”.

Keywords: фотография, революция 1917 года, historical memory, историческая память, историческая политика, commemoration, politics of history, revolution of 1917

Publication based on the results of: Academic Time: Temporal Modes of Russian University Culture (19th-20th cc.) (2018)