Imagology: A History of the Discipline

The little-known word "imagology" is gradually making its way into historical works dedicated to studying images in the minds of people from the past. Its name comes from the English word "image," meaning "the science of images," and is related to the study of national characters through images and stereotypes. As befits an interdisciplinary knowledge, imagology first manifested not in historical science but in literary studies. Even before the revolution, Russian literary scholar Alexander Nikolayevich Veselovsky used the imagological method in his research on the Italian Renaissance.

The first impulse for development within historical science came from the Annales School, represented by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, who suggested that to study historical patterns, human consciousness and behavior should be the focus of research.

Then, from the mid-20th century, a cognitive turn occurred in humanities research, where scholars began to explore the interconnections between the cognitive process and the mechanisms of human psyche. At the same time, the constructivist theory, formulated in Fredrik Barth's study "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries," gained popularity. According to it, nationality and ethnicity are social constructs that exist mainly in people's minds and should be studied with an adjustment for subjective interpretations.

Currently, the leading representative of Western imagology is Joep Leerssen, author of "National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History." Leerssen's research focuses not on objective ethnic characteristics but on an ethnic group's awareness of its own "self." Here, the classic imagological paradigm of the "Self and the Other" opposition is born.

How does it work? As Leerssen writes: "We order the world primarily by dividing it, and the sense of collective community inevitably generates a sense of collective otherness," meaning that understanding who we are arises from contrasting ourselves with the "Other." In everyday life, the "Other" is simply another person who differs from us in some characteristics. Through recognizing these differences, we understand ourselves. At higher levels of social organization, the "Other" comprises entire nations that look, think, and live differently from us. Through the "Self and the Other" opposition, nations have comprehended their place in the world. From the reflections left by our predecessors, stereotypes are born that still exist today. 

Leerssen studied the representation of national images during the Romantic era, particularly through the Humboldt brothers, who explored the geography and cultures of peoples, and the Grimm brothers, who collected German folklore.

In Russian historiography, the study of national consciousness somewhat differs from Western methods and relies more on the analysis of fiction, where stereotypes about national characters are presented in the most exaggerated form. Russian scholars, like Leerssen, trace the tradition of describing national characters back to the Enlightenment era. In "Letters of a Russian Traveler" from the late 18th century, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin first attempted to create images of the peoples he encountered during his travels in Europe and to comprehend the attitude towards Russians abroad.

In Soviet historical science, the application of imagological approaches began in the 1970s with Leonid Abramovich Zak, who studied foreign policy stereotypes in his work "Monarchs Against Peoples: Diplomatic Struggle on the Ruins of the Napoleonic Empire." Zak analyzed Western theoretical approaches to studying images and applied them to the study of international relations, particularly the formation of state images, the influence of stereotypes on relations between countries, and the conscious construction of images in diplomatic practice.

In the early 21st century, literary scholar Viktor Alexandrovich Khorev turned to the understanding of images of Polish nation representatives, publishing imagological collections such as "Poland and Poles Through the Eyes of Russian Writers" and "Perception of Russia and Russian Literature by Polish Writers." In these, the author addresses the problem of "true and false representations of the lives of other peoples" using the example of Russo-Polish literary connections of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Contemporary historian Maria Voitovna Leskinen explores the formation of images and stereotypes about Poles and Finns in the science and culture of the Modern era: "Myths and Images of Sarmatism: The Origins of the National Ideology of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth," "Poles and Finns in Russian Science of the Second Half of the 19th Century: 'The Other' Through the Prism of Identity."

As we can see, Russian imagology is quite focused on Russo-Polish relations of the Modern era. The coexistence of the two peoples in an extremely tense atmosphere of rivalry and cooperation has generated a whole body of imagological sources from both sides. Differences in religion, language, and lifestyle have formed a vast number of stereotypes. For Russian intellectuals of the Modern era, describing Poland as a cultural antipode became a tool either for justifying Russian imperial policy or for condemning it.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that imagology also provides prospects for research concerning not only nations and ethnicities but also smaller communities.

What to read?

1. Barth, F. Ethnic Groups and Social Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Differences. Moscow, 2006.

2. Zak, L. A. Monarchs Against Peoples: Diplomatic Struggle on the Ruins of the Napoleonic Empire. Moscow, 1966.

3. Leskinen, M. V. Great Russian / Great Russian. From the History of Constructing Ethnicity. 19th Century. Moscow, 2016.

4. Leskinen, M. V. Myths and Images of Sarmatism: The Origins of the National Ideology of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Moscow, 2002.

5. Leskinen, M. V. Poles and Finns in Russian Science of the Second Half of the 19th Century: "The Other" Through the Prism of Identity. Moscow, 2010.

6. Khorev, V. A. Perception of Russia and Russian Literature by Polish Writers: (Essays). Moscow, 2012.

7. Khorev, V. A. Poland and Poles Through the Eyes of Russian Writers. Moscow, 2005.

8. Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey / ed. by M. Beller, J. Leerssen. Amsterdam; New York, 2007.

9. Leerssen, J. National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History. Amsterdam, 2006.