The Visualization of History: A New Turn in the Development of Historical Cognition

Abstract

The author analyzes the transformational processes of historical research in the advent of a society of visual culture. The development of visual anthropology became the most obvious factor of the visual turn in historical research, and it studies different manifestations of visuality, using new tools for collecting and registering data (such as a video camera). The increasing popularity of historical films and documentaries, museum installations and historic reconstructions testify to the intensification of the processes of visualization in historical research. The article gives a brief overview of the main stages of the transformation of historical research, including changes in style of language, the expansion of subject matter of research, the update of the resource base and analysis methods in relation to visual sources. The author emphasizes that there is a tendency among historians to use a wide variety of terms that are related to the visual approach (image, appearance, portrait, landscape, etc.). The author focuses on the methodological and methodical aspects of historical-visual studies and considers the methodological approaches towards image reconstruction, mechanisms of image formation, the display of images and the influence of social consciousness and behavior on images. The increase in the amount of modern historical sources is caused by the increasing use of audiovisual sources. Special attention is paid to fictional films as a subtype of audiovisual documents; the author describes their potential and peculiarities of representation. It is noted that when analyzing video documents, it is necessary that the researcher take into account the character of information (images of the present and past). Films based on topics belonging to the same 1 Тема поддержана грантом РГНФ № 14-01-00352 «Визуальные репрезентации советской деревни в художественном кинематографе 1920-1980-х гг.: источниковедческое исследование».

Visual image of "happy childhood" in the newspaper "Kazakhstanskaya pravda" (1960 s)

“…On the methodology and history of «visual culture» and visualization of history writes his studies Mazur L.N. (Mazur, 2014;Mazur, 2015, Mazur, 2018. A number of scientists devote their research to specific types of visual sources.…”

G. S. Rayshev: Communication Functions of the Modern Artist

“…In addition, images are studied in propaganda, branding, up to the training of security forces [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. The functions of visual communications are analyzed [8] and the phenomena of images are included in the historical and ethnographic studies [9], [10], [11]. The work of G.…”

Human in the world of culture: the great patriotic war in the historical and cultural heritage of northeast of Russia (on the example of Yakutia)

“…Lotman, L.P. Repin, L.N. Mazur, S. Bernstein (Halbwax, 2005Nora, 1989;Assmann, 2011;Ricker, 2004;Lotman, 1976Lotman, , 1992Repina, 2003Repina, , 2016Mazur, 2015;Bernstein, 2016) were engaged in research of this area. Recently, new trends in the study of memory problems related to the media and blogosphere have appeared (Hoskins, 2009;Schwarz, 2014;Trubina, 2010Trubina, , 2018Van Dijck, 2007;Youngblood, 2007;Macdonald, 2013).…”