THE IMAGOSPHERE OF THE SOVIET POSTER (BASED ON VICTORIA BONNELL’S “ICONOGRAPHY OF POWER: SOVIET POLITICAL POSTERS UNDER LENIN AND STALIN”)

Abstract. Recent decades have shown significant increase in the number of works carried out in the framework of imagology; at the same time, there is a noticeable expansion of the sphere of imagological research. The reviews of the monograph by the University of California professor Victoria Bonnell “Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin” emphasize the undoubtedly interdisciplinary nature of the monograph. In our opinion, there is every reason to add one more discipline – culturological imagology – to the long list of human sciences mentioned in the reviews in connection with Bonnell’s book. The present research has as its objective the substantiation of this thesis. Imagology in a broad sense is concerned with the study of cross- national perceptions and images of other, “alien” people, countries and their representatives. The title itself, containing the word iconography, testifies to the obvious imagological orientation of Bonnell’s monograph by virtue of its interpretation in art history. Unsurprisingly, the word image is regularly used by the author throughout the work. Bonnell conducts a research into the iconography of the worker, the Soviet woman and the Soviet leader – the images that constitute the core of the imagosphere of the political poster – i.e. the key images of the “golden age” of the Soviet poster. It is hard to imagine anything more “alien” from the point of view of the “subject of perception” (Bonnell) than these significant figures symbolizing their time and political system. Thus, a binary antagonistic model “friend-foe / other”, or “us versus them” as the fundamental concept of imagology comes into existence. Bonnell’s interest in the image of the woman, who for a long time remained among the most significant “others” of culture, is not accidental. The imagological character of Bonnell’s monograph is also manifested in the fact that the author reveals the radical changes in value concepts and guidelines that form the conceptual core of imagology.

Bonnell’s research also presents valuable material in terms of linguistic imagology since the author dwells in detail on the chosen style and language of presentation, explaining her commitment to the use of linguistic terminology. Also indicative is the regular use of the word tipazh, which marked a significant change in the formation and interpretation of poster images and added to other “imagems” characteristic of linguistic imagology. To sum up, in our opinion, there is every reason to claim that V. Bonnell’s research is conducted within the framework of culturological imagology, although this is not stated either in the book itself or in numerous reviews of it. This clarification seems to be fundamentally important, since Bonnell’s monograph (Bonnell, V.E., 1998) is the first and so far the only work that recreates the integral imagological space of the Soviet poster as a system of key images embodying value orientations typical of their time.

Keywords: poster, imagology, linguistic imagology, image, ‘us versus them’ opposition