“Heartfelt meetings”. Emotional regime of the ottepel’ (‘thaw’) period in comments to government photos

Abstract

The article considers an emotional regime of the ottepel’ (‘thaw’) period, which found its expression both in magazine photographs of the time and in the comments to them. The era was oriented at sincerity that realized itself in photographs through the affection of a gesture, through an emphasis on the immediacy of emotional reactions. The accompanying text clarified and strengthened a visual part of a publication, often duplicating a meaning of an image, but at the same time added new connotations to a photograph. On the one hand the emotional statements were descriptive, but on the other hand they were prescriptive, offering the Soviet citizens a model to follow. Magazine publications established emotional norms and indicated necessary ways of responding to certain political events. The paper identifies three modes for the desired interpretation of images – ‘subjective’, ‘mimetic’ and ‘regulatory’. The research is based on comments and other text messages that accompanied government photographs in such popular Soviet magazines as Ogonyok, Soviet Photo, Soviet Union, etc. It focuses on the format of publications, comparing texts and images.