Political Iconography vs Potestary Imagology: Research Centers, Heuristic Potential and Methodological Frameworks

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the heuristic potential, methodological framework and research direction of two (sub)disciplines – political iconography and post-war imagology. The scientific novelty consists in revealing aspects of the development of political iconography and post-modern imagology that have not been sufficiently studied by historical science, in particular on the example of Ukrainian historiography at the current stage (1991–2022). The research methodology involves adherence to the principles of scientificity, development, systematicity, historicism, and historiographical tradition. Research methods are general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, and deduction, as well as historical methods, in particular historical-genetic, historical-systemic, and the method of source criticism. The source base of the research consists of the texts of Martin Warnke, Abi Warburg, Alois Riegl, Mikhail Boytsov, in which the terminological apparatus of art history, visual history, political iconography, and post-historical imagology is partially or fully substantiated. It has been found that there are almost no studies in the framework of political iconography in Ukraine, but studies using the methods of imagology, post-historical imagology, and historical imagology have gained active development. Post-test imagology, proposed by M. Boytsov, continues research in philology, comparative linguistics, and political history. The problems of post-war imagology cover, first of all, the problems of alienation, the mechanisms of creating and functioning of stereotypes, images of power, and the effects of images on society. Political iconography proposed by M. Warnke at the beginning 1990s, is a logical continuation of Warburg iconography, art history and visual studies. Recognizing that the main political center is not narrative, but visual sources, researchers of political iconography analyze the communicative space in which the image (German: bild) is an independent actor that implements its own policies. Thanks to the images, the space is semiologized and transformed into a political space.