PLACE AND MEMORY: ON THE QUESTION OF ENSURING OF EXISTENCE IN THE TOTALITARIAN SYSTEM (ON THE EXAMPLE OF ARTISTIC REPORTS BY S. OSLAVSKA)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the ways of ensuring and defending the existence of an individual and a group (ethnic, religious, gender etc.) and their identity in a totalitarian state (on the example of S. Oslavska's collection of artistic reports «Crescent, Cross and Peacock: Journeys to Mesopotamia». The synthetic nature of the genre of artistic reporting in this case contributes to the formation of a holistic, unfolding in time picture of the struggle of an individual and a group against the totalitarian state. The characters of S. Oslavska's artistic reports as representatives of certain social groups, their relationship with the Other (totalitarian state and journalist), space, within which the individual acts, are the key subjects of the image. S. Oslavska's artistic reports represent a significant number of characters marked as hostile to the totalitarian system within which they operate. The system aims to destroy them both spiritually and physically. How to secure themselves? The journalist sees this: rooting through a memory and a history into the past; adherence to traditions and values ​​that cement the community (ethnic, gender, religious etc.); creation of a new private-and-public space as an individual's reaction to the violation of his fundamental human rights; an attempt to share a traumatic experience with Another, including a journalist, which not only has a therapeutic effect, but also establishes new social connections necessary for existence through the media.