Fotografia ako kultúrno-historický prameň (súčasné teoretické prístupy)
Photography as a Cultural-Historical Source (Current Theoretical Approaches)

Summary/Abstract: The title shows the possibilities of using theoretical approaches to photography as a historical source and points out that the use of photography in the Slovak and Czech historical science is in contrast to the Anglo-American or German environment at the edge of interest. Author deals with the iconographic method and the semiotic approach. The iconographic method has established itself primarily in the history of art. Its analytical principle consists of a description of the displayed objects, their relationships and explanations of the discovered contingency. The semiotic approach analyses photo by decomposing a photographic image (character) on a set of smaller characters (referents). The photo image is therefore perceived as a special text encoded by a specific character system that fils the role of the communication medium. These approaches are limited in Slovak and Czech historiography, in a small range of work that the author analyses.The photograph was recognized by the International Committee of Historical Sciences as a historical source in the early 1930s. Despite this fact, historians have been avoiding to use it for historical research almost half of a century. We may find the reason in the previously absent methodology, the researchers focusing on the written sources did not know how to work with such a picture source. A significant turnaround in the interest of visual material occurred in the 1960s, when photography became a scope for social scientists. This attention has subsequently moved to other felds of science, including history as a consequence of research of everyday life history.The aim of this study is to introduce the theoretical approaches for using photography as a cultural and historical source. The first part deals with an iconographic method and a semiotic approach. The second part of the paper focuses on the positioning of photography as a historical source in Slovak historiography, pointing to the fact that its use in Slovak historical science is still on the periphery, unlike in the Anglo-American or German environment.Criticism of the source is an important step before its analysis. Concerning image sources, photography is a special phenomenon, because reality is not displayed on the basis of analogies but as its reflection. Additionally, although we are aware of its ambiguity, we tend to approach it as a piece of evidence illustrating one objective truth. The subject of criticism is to discover not only the authenticity of the source, circumstances, the place and the time of its origin, but also information about the photographer’s personality, the origins of the source and the factors influencing its content. Using the criticism of the source we may judge whether it is a genuine source or a fake.The iconographic method was originally introduced in the history of art for analysis and interpretation of paintings, and later specifically adapted for interpretation of photographs. The analysis consists of three levels. The first is a pre-iconographic interpretation, which consists of the marking of individual objects and events. The second level is an iconographic analysis that assigns importance to each subject. It is based on professional artistic and historical knowledge and knowledge of contemporary realities. The last level is an iconological interpretation of the inner meaning of the work of art. At this level, images become a useful testimony for cultural historians. An important prerequisite for proper iconographic image analysis is the expert knowledge of the researcher from the selected period. Researchers often need to use other, e.g. written sources such as literary sources. This method has been criticized for its overly intuitive, speculative nature and indifference to the social context.The semiotic method is one of the youngest but most important approaches to analysis of photograph. It is characterized by the fact that the photographic image (sign) is subject to decomposition on a set of smaller attributes (referents). This method puts more emphasis on the individual contradictions between the displayed attributes and unlike the iconographic method, draws attention to what is not captured in the photograph. Semiotic analysis consists of two phases of the analytical process. The first is a denotation that is analogous to preiconographic interpretation. The photo consists of several elements that must be named at this stage; it is important to dismantle each element of the image no matter how insignificant it may appear at first glance. The second phase is a connotation that is key for interpretation of photography because it involves the assignment of meaning to all the elements of the image described in the first phase.By connotation of the individual attributes and as consequence of the mutual interrelation between the components of the image, the photograph is taken as a whole. This method is most often criticized for not taking into account contextual information important for the analysis of the photographic image. The main difference between the iconographic and semiotic methods is that while the principle of iconography consists of a description of the objects displayed, their relationships and the explanation of the revealed contexts, the semiotic approach perceives the photographic image as a specific text encoded by a specific character system that fills the role of the communication medium. The researcher can choose the right method to find out what information he wants to learn from the photo.From the analysis of Slovak historiography, to which is devoted to the second part of the study, shows that work with photographic material as a source is marginalized in historical science. Evidence of this is the absence of relevant historical work, in this case the photograph fulfils an illustrative function. It is therefore important to present a number of works in the feld of art history, which, in terms of their interdisciplinary approach, also affect historical science. They deal mainly with the Slovak history of the twentieth century, namely the lifestyle, propaganda or visualization of a woman in visual culture. The lack of selected publications result in insufficient methodological grasp of work with the photographic source, in most cases the authors approach the analysis of photographs in an intuitive way.There has not been published a relevant historical publication that would work with photography as a historical source in the Slovak historiography, a greater interest in such a type of visual material lies in the feld of art history. The reason we may see in fact that the acquisition of art-historical methods as well as the formal and content analysis of the work belong to the study of the history of art. We see another reason in the feld of historical science itself. While the interest in photography in the Anglo-American environment is noticeable in the 1980s, Czechoslovakia was part of the USSR, and historical science developed in a completely different way under the influence of the regime, which was until the fall of the communist regime. In the nineties, Slovak historiography had to deal with the research of topics that were undesirable in previous years. The overcoming of this disability is visible only lately with the arrival of a new generation of young historians reflecting trends in Western European historiography.

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