Artistic Devices Research Articles

Плац-концерт: возникновение и особенности жанра

The evolution of Russian military music culture is marked by continuous modification, reflecting socioeconomic, social and political mainstreams of the country. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the growing level of national military music has made foreign colleagues pay special attention to it. This article describes the circumstances under which the parade-concert genre was formed at the end of the 1980s, the further development of which brought the military music art into a wide sociocultural context through inextricable bond with the mass performance genre. This is illustrated by the progressive development of the international military music festival movement. With the introduction and current development of technologies and additional artistic devices, parade-concert programmes are being transformed, while performances become standalone shows. The author of this article suggests that the spread of parade-concerts in Europe was due to the orchestral of the military conductor faculty students of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory at the 1989 military band festival in Mons (Belgium). Needless to mention that at such events, European military music art was represented solely by demonstration defiles of marching military bands. Moreover, at the stage of emergence of parade-concerts, miscommunication of the terms “defile” and “parade-concert” appeared, which has not been solved yet. Nowadays researchers define these terms differently and use them without proper understanding of their initial meaning. Researchers of the parade-concert genre, who are few in number, have mixed opinions on its structure. The practice of structural modifications in the traditional programme of a parade-concert shows that its structure is inconsistent and depends on various technical, artistic and semantic factors as well as authors’ imagination and professionalism. In view of the above, the author deems it appropriate to move beyond the existing disintegration of the structure of a parade-concert and define its most common elements such as a march-parade and a concert section.

Expressive means of linguistic expressiveness in the texts of anthologies about the Russo-Ukrainian war

The article analyzes the expressive means of linguistic expressiveness in the texts of anthologies about the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is determined that spatio-temporal components, toponyms, stylistic figures, phraseological units, with the help of which the authors convey the emotional state and their own vision of the war, add expressiveness to the analyzed works. The illustrative examples given in the paper show that the most frequently used figurative means are various types of toponyms: choronyms, astionyms, drymonyms, which acquire symbolic meaning and perform nominative, stylistic and localization functions. They help the reader imagine the place where the events take place and their use is mostly metaphorical. It is proven that expressive sounding is created by various stylistic figures: antonomasia, antithesis, deonymization, hyperbole, synecdoche, onomatopoeia. The most common artistic device is antithesis, which gives the texts of anthologies emotionality, expressiveness and imagery. Intensity and duration of the action are emphasized by repetition, which performs reinforcing, isolating, emotional-expressive and structural functions. It is found out that the authors of anthologies use various means of expression, in particular sensory images, among which visual perception prevails. The results show that black, gray, dark colors predominate in the analyzed texts, with the help of which the writers convey the lyrical hero’s feelings of pain, sadness, joylessness caused by the realities of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Emotional and evaluative modality is imbedded in lexical and phraseological neologisms that characterize modern reality. Taken together, these results suggest that in the texts of the anthologies about the Russo-Ukrainian war, emotionality of the expression is achieved by figurative and stylistic means of language.

Традиции чувашского и калмыцкого сказочного эпоса

The article is devoted to a long-term dispute about the peculiarity / non-property of the fairy tale genre of the typical features of the heroic epos. On the basis of the historical-typological method and the method of plot analysis, the corpus of texts of the Chuvash and Kalmyk fairy tale epic has been studied. The study considers the main works devoted to this problem, compares the relevant Chuvash texts with the Kalmyk fairytale epic, points to the incorporation of the biography and exploits of the fairytale hero in the heroic epic “Dzhangar”. The author also considers such blocks of heroic matchmaking as the childlessness of parents, a miraculous origin, heroic childhood and martial arts. All these motives are inherent in both the heroic tale and the heroic epic. The heroic traditions of the Chuvash and Kalmyk fairy tale epic are expressed in ethno-cultural realities, plot, epic motifs, and artistic devices. At the same time, researchers have no reason to talk about the complete identity of the ideological and artistic complex of the heroic epic and the heroic tale. The heroic epic and fairy tale are essentially differentiated genres. Here, one can speak as much as possible about the epic nature of heroic tales, about similarities and diffusion, but not about complete identity, and, naturally, there is no need to complete the magic-heroic tale to the classical epic. The publication contributes to the substantiation of the main features of the heroic epos in the heroic tale.

The Beauty, the Beast and the Cinema. “The Chain Scheme” in Chinese Literature and Cinematography. Part 2

In the first part of the work, entitled “The Beauty, the Beast and the Red Hare” published in “Corpus Mundi” Vol. 3(2), 2022, I trace the origin of the “Chain Scheme” legend in the Chinese historical chronicles, analyze the development of the plot in the poetry, fiction and other works of art and make conclusions about the interpretation of the main characters’ morals and motivations in pre-modern Chinese culture. In the present paper, which is the second part of the same research, I analyze artistic devices and narrative tropes in TV versions of “Three Kingdoms”, I comment on the changes that the plot has undergone in the course of history and especially in modern TV-dramas and make some conclusions as to the clash of traditional and modern value systems.

GENRE PECULIARITIES OF THE LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD (12TH 13TH CENTURIES)

The period of French domination left an important mark on the later history of English literature, which, in some cases, is more common with the artistic devices and style of French literature of the Norman period than with the study of Anglo-Saxon literature, from which it was artificially divorced. The Norman conquest conditioned certain specific features of language development. The main one was the spread of three languages in the Kingdom of England – French among the ruling class, English among the broad masses of the population, and Latin in church affairs and administration. This affected the linguistic and genre character of English medieval literature.Methods used in the study: general scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction), methods of theoretical research (from abstract to concrete), historical method Among the feudal lords, the most popular genre was chivalric poetry, which was brought from France by trouver singer-poets. The most common manifestation of chivalric poetry was the rhyming chivalric novel, which reflected the customs of the upper feudal class, promoted heroic deeds, the code of chivalric morality, and examples of human virtues. The novels about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table became the most popular.

Artistic Originality of the Novel “Farewell to Arms!” by E. Hemingway

Indifference of authorities was a main symbol of the time preceded creation of the novel Farewell to Arms!. To save democracy it was reflected in the propaganda of war. The calls were especially persistent in May 1918. At this moment, the elderly felt the apathy of the strong and did not want to participate in this wrong war, young men (such as eighteen-year-old Hemingway) did not understand anything and went to the front. Most of them were destined to die. The fate loved Ernest: it saved him from joining the army several times. Later, when the young man could no longer wait, it saved him from direct participation in hostilities. In vain, because the war engages even Red Cross employees in physical and moral battles: it raises many unsolvable questions, makes them doubt the honesty of what is happening and tries to devalue the highest feelings. Many decisive measures were to be taken to preserve the soul. Many artistic devices would come in need to describe the experience. The study of these mediums is the subject of this research, the proof of their artistic power is the goal. The research was carried out on the materials of the English and Russian versions of the novel, critical articles by researchers of the writer's work. The comprehensive method of literary analysis was used. We revealed high thematic saturation in the novel because of our research effords. The author raised many problems: an intellectual in war, people's attitude to war, religion and war, morality and war, the fall of man in war, the influence of official propaganda on people; showed originality of the use of synthesis and montage (combination of pictures of different quality and meaning), sophisticated contrast; confirmed validity of the breach of the chronological principle.

Das Feuerwerk der Linie

Abstract In 1637 Claude Lorrain made a series of etchings in which he depicted the elaborate fireworks organized by the Spanish ambassador in Rome in occasion of the election of Ferdinand III as King of the Romans. This article deals with the political and religious dimensions of the performative act as well as the complex aesthetic strategies of transferring the ephemeral event into the more lasting medium of print. Considering the Thirty Years’ War, Lorraine’s ‚explosive‘ prints functioned, I argue, as artistic devices to control the forces of fiery destruction, a crucial issue for the princely representation of Habsburg dignity, and to demonstrate the artist’s virtuosity and eruptive innovation.

국악-재즈 크로스오버와 전통 확장 이데올로기

Since the late 20th century, plenty of collaborative works among Korean traditional musicians and jazz performers have emerged in the realm of “changjak gugak (lit. creative national music).” In 2020s, within the scene of traditional music-based crossover works, “elite” jazz musicians’ active participation and the use of musical elements of jazz music have become more and more visible.
 During the same period, the discourses of “expansion,” “popularization,” and/or “modernization” of tradition has constantly circulated and consumed as a bundle of “spirit of the times.” Those discourses became intertwined together and thereby produced and reproduced two differentiated ideological time-spaces of “gugak musicians and listeners-premodern era-oldness-Korean (traditional) culture/music” and “the public(laymen)-modern times-newness-Western culture/music.” Because of these ideological frames, a variety of new gugak-jazz works constructed by a set of conventionalized and oft-outdated jazz performance skills and composing styles are often automatically categorized as examples of “musical expansion/modernization/ popularization” of traditional music that offer new kinds of experience, Many of those gugak-jazz crossover works which are totally not new in terms of artistic device are represented as new things “inertially” due to this existence of state-driven ideological discourses that semiotically connect the Western music to newness, which result in the crossover musicians’ benefit from the gugak-related financial aid programs offered by the state. Those discourses often ideologically dominate traditional music performers and related participants, thus the established style of gugak pieces with jazz-related elements are introduced as a “new expansion” of traditional music by musicians themselves as well as gugak-related mass media. This paper critically argues that such discursive convention that often unfairly elevates all kinds of gugak-jazz crossover works should be reconsidered and productively deconstructed for better understanding and critic of crossover gugak works.

IN DEFENCE OF A “POOR” VR IMAGE

The article is devoted to a “poor image” considered in the context of artworks created by means of virtual reality (VR). In contemporary art discourse, the concept of a “poor image” was actualised by German video artist Hito Steyerl, who analysed it in accordance with the development of telecommunication networks and Internet culture. We transpose this intuition to the field of a “poor” VR image, that is, one that is characterised by low polygonality and detail, poor elaboration of textures, and so on. We argue that a “poor image” can be used as a tool to form an artistic statement, or may work as an artistic device, as a “cool medium” (using M. McLuhan’s term), which encourages the viewer to participate in communication more intensely: the lack of visual information and/or insufficient information allows the viewer’s imagination to complete the image in a mode of perception that may be understood as co-creation. Our statement is confirmed by examples of VR projects done in the last ten years: Home after the War and In the Morning You Wake up. A “poor” VR image can be compared, among other things, to amateur video filming, where there is no “cinema effect”. The authors offer the viewer low-poly models of characters (that do not look like real living beings), spaces that are impossible to get into, backgrounds that look like flat theatre backdrops, on which objects seem to “play a role” rather than exist (as in modernist paintings). In that sense, the phenomenon of the “poor” VR-image opposes the existing conventions of the film and video game industry, where the “good picture” dominates. There is a “reign” of a high-quality, visually convincing (suggestive) image that allows the viewer to immerse themselves in the vicissitudes of the narrative, makes the medium “transparent”, enhancing the effect of the viewer’s presence in the virtual world. Unlike a “good” picture, a “bad” picture does not allow the viewer to forget about the medium since, like a Dadaist collage, it has “seams outward”. However, this is precisely why such a statement can be perceived by the audience as anti-commercial, non-false, as if it arises from authors’ need for co-existence and co-experience with the audience. In the hands of a contemporary VR artist, a “poor image” can become an effective tool for artistic influence.

Phonological Theory of Zaum' Language by A. Tufanov and R. Jacobson. Humboldtian Origins of the Russian Formalism

The article discusses the phonological interpretation of the poetic language in the works of A. Tufanov and R. Jacobson. From the author's point of view, the original analytics of zaum' language was based on the acoustic theory proposed by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay. The first zaumniki who were guided by this theory in their early theoretical research were I. Zdanevich and I. Terent'ev. It also influenced A. Tufanov, who because of his orientation towards the concept of the universal language of Velimir Khlebnikov, formulated the idea of so-called “immediate lyricism”, which was much closer to the poetic language than all previous interpretations made by formalists. A. Tufanov proposed to consider phonemes as autonomous elements of the work of art, which are designed to directly evoke certain emotions. Finally, the bridge from the early zaum' poets to formalist school was thrown by R. Jacobson with the help of his theory of the phonological foundations of the zaum' language. Jacobson distinguished between phonetica (based on Baudouin's acusmas and kinemas) and phonology, which considered the sound as an artistic device. From this point of view, zaum' turned out to be maximally divorced from semantic sound structure, but at the same time, Jacobson recognized that there is a dialectical interdependence between semantics, syntax, and phonology. The phonological theory was an important milestone in the way of understanding zaum', as well as one of the sources for the formation of the theoretical foundations of the formalist school.

Image of the Perpetrator, the Victim, and the Bystander in Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden (1994)

This article analyzes the cinematographic means used by Roman Polanski in Death and the Maiden to portray the characters of the movie and the relationship between them. It discusses how Polanski toys with the thriller convention to create a cognitive dissonance in the viewer and uses artistic devices to reflect the process of restoring the identity by the protagonist. In particular, the author examines the frame of the movie and its compositional and semantic functions and compares selected scenes with René Magritte’s paintings, to show how the director depicts the experience of the main character and the blurring of boundaries between the perpetrator and the victim. Also, colours, props, and landscape motifs associated with each character are analyzed to explain their symbolic and dramatic function in the film.

Quraq in the Contemporary Art of Central Asia: Symbolic Language and Artistic Text

A piece of fabric and products, made from it, are called quraq by the Kazakhs, in the past and now it occupy a special place in the cultural practice of the peoples of Central Asia; and today its renaissance is taking place in modern art both as an image itself and as an artistic device. This is due to its wide expressive technical and artistic, semantic and communicative capabilities. In general, authors of the article understand the term of quraq as the traditional patchwork technique as such and the whole variety of products made with this technique. The analysis of modern works of art from the point of view of semiotics showed that a piece of fabric (as a sign and as a symbol) is able to demonstrate various ways of encoding ethnocultural information. The main methodological tool of this study is the semiotic approach, where a piece of fabric is considered at the level of semantics as a sign of the symbolic language, and from the standpoint of pragmatics as a text representing relationship between the sign (a piece of fabric) and those who use it (an artist, a viewer). The study also uses general scientific methods of observation, comparison, analysis and synthesis. It seems that this approach is relevant in a study of modern visual art. Based on the semiotic approach and the artistic experience of contemporary artists of Central Asia, this study aims to demonstrate new vectors of Kazakh cultural studies and art criticism. Concerning the materials used in this article, they come from a variety of sources: the field research carried out by the Russian Ethnographic Museum during the period from 2019 to 2021, a number of regional studies museums in Kazakhstan, as well as online collections of the Central Asian region presented at the International Quilt Museum (Nebraska, USA). The article has been prepared within the project of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan AR09259280 Languages of Kazakh Culture as the Basis of Ethnic Identity: Semiotics and Semantics.

Smile! It's only Covid: Analyzing covid-19 internet memes

This article describes the special attributes of social media memes and their viral distribution during the Covid-19 pandemic and explores how they can challenge some of our conventional conceptions of creativity and humor. The internet memes turned to be very popular during the lockdown and this has raised questions about the possible relationship between a private creation its mass distribution and its possible assessment. A reasonable hypothesis is that the wide accessibility to the internet has strengthened the resilience and ability to cope with the pandemic and allowed nearly everyone to become a meme creator or receiver. The article lists some of the common themes and artistic devices that were used by meme creators and examines the power and limitations of traditional creativity and humor theories to explain this viral phenomenon.

THE THEME OF A LOANER HERO’S PROUD DEATH IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FRENCH ROMANTICISM (A. DE VIGNI “THE DEATH OF A WOLF”)

The given article deals with investigation of the poem of a French poet-romantic, A. de Vinji «The Death of a Wolf». The author of the article analyses the images of the animals in the poem and artistic devices of their realization. The main topics and problematics of this literary work are viewed both in the context of A. de Vinji’s creative work and in the context of European Romanticism. The given article deals with investigation of the poem of a French poet-romantic, A. de Vigny ’The Death of a Wolf’. The author of the article analyses animal images in the poem and the means of artistic embodiment of the latter. The main topics and problematics of this literary work are considered both in the context of A. de Vigny’ s creative work and in the context of European Romanticism. The poetic work of A. de Vigny begins in 1816 and continues throughout his life. It should be noted that the distinctive peculiarity of de Vigny’s poetry is its all-pervading disbelief both in bourgeois society and in the Restoration Regime, which was trying to save the remnants of the feudal system. The poet has in mind the whole ephemerality of the desire of the nobility to drag out the course of history and return the pre-revolutionary sociopolitical system. That is why Vigny’s poetry is imbued with the utmost skepticism and pessimism. Hence, from this rejection of modernity, the character of de Vigny’s plots and images derives. As the literary critic T. V. Bovsunevskaya emphasizes: “Romantics had to synthesize a new, Renaissance type of person, but in such a way that he reflected the features of a new era and professed a new spirit.” De Vigny was looking for such a hero all his creative life; however, his hero will always be a lonely, misunderstood person, in a state of deepest conflict both with society and often with himself. It should be noted that de Vigny’s poetry is inherently deeply personal and lyrical, and in its external form it is emphatically epic and philosophical. Vigny himself argued that if he was ahead of his contemporaries in some way, it was in the ability to create philosophical poetry. The poet wraps in the form of a mythological or historical parable, an ancient plot such problems as the fatal loneliness of a genius, the impotence of a person in front of a cruel and blind deity, the suffering of the innocent. Thus, another feature of his poetry is also manifested — its being alien to topicality. The poet finds out the relationship not with his age, but with history in general, with God, with fate. In the later period of his work, the theme ’poet and society’ often sounds.

ЗУСТРІЧ ІЗ ДВІЙНИКОМ: ФЕНОМЕН ДВІЙНИЦТВА У ПРОЗІ ЮРІЯ КОСАЧА, ІГОРЯ КОСТЕЦЬКОГО, ВІКТОРА ДОМОНТОВИЧА

The paper is devoted to the study of the artistic interpretation of the phenomenon of duality in Ukrainian emigration prose, in particular in the works of Yuri Kosach ("The Voice from afar"), Ihor Kostetsky ("The price of a human name"), and Viktor Domontovych ("The tamed haydamak"). The peculiarities of interpretation by Ukrainian émigré writers of the concepts of duality and double, their ideological content and autobiographical overtones are analyzed. Attention is focused on the creation of a system of double characters, the main artistic techniques used by the authors to depict the duality of man and the world as well as inter-textual parallels of the studied texts. Duality is considered in these texts both as a certain motive realized through understanding the phenomenon of duality of a person and the world, and as an artistic device that affects the organization of the work system (figurative, plot, composition). It is noted that in the texts under study, the phenomenon of duality, although it has distinctly romantic features, demonstrates new changes based on modernist artistic means and associated with the problem of identity. It is artistically expressed by such means as the principle of "polar mirroring", the interweaving of "external" and "internal" plots, the sleep as an artistic technique, the motif of the "mechanic man", etc. In the content of the works, it is realized thought an appeal to the theme of taboo, isolated and repressed memory (by Yuri Kosach), the question of name and biography (by Ihor Kostetsky), the problem of the integrity of the human personality (by Viktor Domontovych). It is argued that the phenomenon of duality turned out to be a fairly productive artistic model, which made it possible to identity significant contradictions in the human character and thinking, to realize the complexity and ambiguity of the world and the person in it, their interconnectedness and interdependence.

Narrative strategies in the stories by Vladimir Nabokov in the 1920s

The author argues that the features of the narrative structure in the stories by Vladimir Nabokov have repeatedly become the subject of researchers’ attention, both literary critics and linguists. Scholars have highlighted some features specific to the modernist narrative in the analyzes of particular Nabokov works and in the scholarly articles devoted to Nabokov in general. One of the most prominent feature is the uncertainty of the “deictic modus of the text” (Mikhail Dymarsky). However, in the early Nabokov works, when his individual style was just being formed, one can find examples of a consistently sustained traditional narrative. The material for this study was Nabokovʼs stories of the 1920s: this period accounts for almost half of the short stories he created; in addition, the instability of the authorʼs preferences when choosing narrative strategies attracts researcher’s attention. The fundamental differences between these strategies, their incompatibility, and their orientation toward solving mutually exclusive problems become more noticeable when comparing early Nabokov prose and the works by Anton Chekhov, a writer whose creative method evolved within the framework of the traditional narrative. So, along with all sorts of ways to violate the usual conditions of communication with the reader, Nabokov also uses the types of narration explored by Alexandre Chudakov on Chekhovʼs material. In other words, in the early stories, Nabokov actively masters the experience of his recent predecessors and looks for ways to overcome traditional narrative forms; in this sense, the arsenal of his artistic devices is more diverse than that of his predecessors. The results of the study allow to formulate a question about the plot conditionality of certain narrative devices in Nabokovʼs stories and, more broadly, in his prose.

Заимствованные названия напитков в текстах А. С. Пушкина

The article examines borrowed words that denote various types of drinks in the poetic and prose works of AlexanderPushkin as well as in his letters. These names are part of the gastronomic vocabu-lary and are an integral part of the cultural code. We study this group of words from the point of view of their relation to particular source languages. As a result of the study, French, English, German, Arabic, Turkic, Hungarian, and Portuguese loanwords for drinks have been identified. Most of them are gallicisms. Particu-lar attention is paid in the article to the peculiarities of the semantics of the lexical units under study. The total number of native and borrowed names and the number of the word usages have been determined. InPushkin’s poetic, prose, and epistolary texts, most of the names of drinks (26 out of 36) are borrowed words. The research was carried out within the framework of lexico-semantic, linguoculturological, and functional-stylistic approaches. Borrowings are considered not only in the linguistic but also in the cultural-historical aspect. This is necessary to understand the author’s idea, which is realized, for example, in the description of the life of the metropolitan and local nobility, household sketches, and characterization of heroes. It is con-cluded that many of Pushkin’s works are characterized by the poetization of drinks, which is achieved with the help of epithets, personifications, metaphors, and other artistic devices, thanks to which scenes of family life, descriptions of friends’ meetings and love experiences acquire a unique romantic shade. This article can be used as a basis for further research on the problems under this topic.

Речевая репрезентация героев пьесы А. П. Чехова «Три сестры»

The article is devoted to the analysis of the speech features of the characters in A. P. Chekhov’s dramatic work «Three Sisters». The problem of the role of a speech portrait in creating an artistic image is one of the topical areas of philological research. The review of scientific literature allows us to accept as a basic thesis that the author, through immersion in everyday life, reveals the complexity and tragedy of human life. The aim of the study is to prove this thesis based on the analysis of the speech of the characters (three sisters), which is one of the components of their character. The article presents a description of the semantic and stylistic specifics of the vocabulary of each of the sisters. It is speech that acts as a representative of the personal characteristics of the heroines. In A. P. Chekhov’s play, we see three individualities, and they are perceived as a single image. This fact can be regarded as an original artistic device of the playwright. The use of a complex of descriptive and analytical methods in the study of the speech originality of the Prozorov sisters made it possible to conclude that the diverse heroines are close. This proximity is realized through a set of lexical means, discussed issues, through the designation of life position. The closeness of three different personalities is explained not only by the fact that they are representatives of the same family, but also by the fact that the combined image helps the playwright to express his position and make the reader and viewer think about the eternal questions of life.

Søren Kierkegaard’s language: Semantic fields of metaphors and similes in The Sickness unto Death

This article presents a classification of those artistic devices that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard uses in his work The Sickness unto Death. We will talk about such figures of speech as metaphor and simile. This classification arose as a result of the translation and analysis of the treatise since its careful study showed that these stylistic devices are not single and random means of expression designed to decorate or diversify the text, but an integral part of Kierkegaard’s philosophical thinking, which is characterized by figurativeness and concreteness. Kierkegaard blames modern philosophers for abstract thinking divorced from reality, and to present his ideas he chooses a figurative language replete with concrete comparisons since he sees it as his task to consider the real problems of human life. This classification is based on the division of artistic devices not according to their type, but according to their semantics. Each group of devices is a “semantic field” from which Kierkegaard drew metaphors and comparisons for a more precise and at the same time more figurative description of his views. The article considers the nine most common semantic fields, while in The Sickness unto Death, there are more than twenty of them. Since metaphors and comparisons are an integral part of Kierkegaard’s text, a careful study of them is very important both for philosophers who want to penetrate deeper into the concept of the Danish thinker, and for translators who seek to convey the author’s original text as accurately as possible. Thus, the main task of the presented classification is to approach the understanding of the concept of “despair” through those figurative characteristics that Kierkegaard endows them with.

Репрезентація національних історій у ілюстрованій науково-популярній літературі (на прикладі ілюстрацій Артура Кампфа і Георга Белве до «Preußens Geschichte» («Історії Пруссії»,1913) Рудольфа Герцога)

This study looks at illustrated popular literature as a tool for shaping its readers–viewers’ perceptions of national histories. The author explores this issue through the example of Rudolf Herzog’s book for German school students «History of Prussia» ("Preußens Geschichte'', 1913) illustrated by Arthur Kampf and Georg Belwe. Despite the book’s popularity in the 1910s, this paper offers its first academic examination. The study combines terminology and methods coming from the fields of history of representations, political mythologies’ and visual cultures studies as well as art history. The author also adheres to methodological recommendations formulated by researchers in illustrated literature. The paper demonstrates that «Preussens Geschichte» exemplifies personality- and event-centred «official-nationalist» approach to history writing. The book’s contents reflect the current political situation and seek to promote the imperial government’s agendas as well as certain moral values. The author argues that the specific purpose of Kampf and Belwe’s illustrations consisted in stressing and simplifying the book’s key subject matter and facilitating its memorisation. The ballads performed the same function. The author maintains that the stylistic unity and repetition of similar subject-matter in Belwe and Kampf’s work contribute to the book’s overall representation of Prussia’s history as a coherent narrative. Belwe’s pictures encapsulate the book’s main ideas through the use of generalised images rather than directly translating Herzog’s prose and poetry into pictures. Kampf’s illustrations further stress the role of monarchy and army as the key actors of Prussian history through the artist’s selection of subject-matter and employment of artistic devices. Together with Herzog’s text, his pictures promote determination, courage, and self-sacrifice for the sake of the country. Two other themes that dominate Kampf’s illustrations are the bond between the monarchy, the nation, and the church (an element of The Second Reich’s official nationalism) as well as Prussia’s technological advancement as an epitome of its political power.