“The Five Fallen” as a Meta-image of Polish Culture in the Mid-19th Century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the national manifestations of 1861 and its consequences. Photography played an important role in warming up the atmosphere of Warsaw street, especially the photos of "The Fallen Five" taken by Karol Beyer (1818–1877), a famous Warsaw photographer. The author analyses the ways of using photos in the context of contemporary visual and performative practices. The tableau representing the fallen becomes a cultural meta-image – a representation linking current emotions and a durable symbolic matrix, documentary features of photography, and persistent religious-national patterns.