Decentered Perspectives on Illustration from the Imperial and Soviet Eras

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the symbiotic relationship between visual elements and storytelling in literary works. From book covers and illustrations to graphic novels and multimedia adaptations, visual storytelling plays a vital role in shaping our understanding and interpretation of literature. The papers examine the dynamic interplay between text and image, showcasing how visual narratives can amplify the impact of literary works.
Sooyeon Lee’s paper “Beyond Text: Illustration as Translation in the Soviet-North Korean Children’s Literature” conducts a comparative analysis of illustrations in translations between Soviet and North Korean children’s literature, emphasizing illustration as a form of translation. It explores techniques and trends in the translation process, aiming to reveal the underlying purposes and motivations influencing these practices.
Ksenia Un’s paper, “The Bear and the ‘Type’: Patterns of Representation in Illustrated Publications and Periodicals of the Late Russian Empire,” examines 19th and early 20th-century drawings in late Russian Empire’s publications. It contends that the prevalence of the photographic "type" in late imperial visual culture, starting from the 1860s, constrains artistic expression in European periodicals and ethnographic publications, reinforcing an implicit narrative of imperial dominance over non-Slavic and non-Eastern Orthodox communities.
Julia Denne’s paper, “Religion and Ethnography in Alisa Poret’s Early Children’s Illustrations,” explores Alisa Poret's illustrations for “The Exhibition of Gods” and “Whose Toys Are These?” (both 1930), which transform conventional Soviet anti-religious propaganda into an ethnographically accurate and symbolically sinister world, aligning with the avant-garde vision and studied by Soviet ethnographers.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Chair

• Bella Delacroix Ostromooukhova, Sorbonne U (France)

Papers

• Beyond Text: Illustration as Translation in Soviet and North Korean Children’s Literature - Sooyeon Lee, U of Toronto (Canada)

• Religion and Ethnography in Alisa Poret’s Early Children’s Illustrations - Julia Kriventsova Denne, By the Onion Sea

• The Bear and the 'Type': Patterns of Representation in Illustrated Publications and Periodicals of the Late Russian Empire - Ksenia Un, Case Western Reserve U

Discussant

• Bella Delacroix Ostromooukhova, Sorbonne U (France)