FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, AND MEMORABILIA IN INSCRIBED AMATEUR FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

Abstract

The presented research is based on the study of amateur Soviet photography as a massive visual historical source. The author refers to the Russian and foreign experience of using visual representations to study socio-cultural characteristics thus setting a goal to reveal, by means of family cases, the presence of sociable or family ties and memory practices using images and text located on a single photographic medium and presented in material domestic space. The study covered the southwestern districts of the Bryansk Oblast, with its historical small provincial towns and rural settlements, which are quite typical for the Soviet period of the region's history. The study demonstrated that Soviet amateur photography was the most accessible and popular way of transferring memory, preserving and presenting sociable, family, and kinship ties, including between rural and urban relatives, parents and children, and the older and younger generations. Most often, photo captions contain ‘commemorating’ inscriptions, indicating the time and place of picture-taking. Relative signings on behalf of the child were also popular since it emphasized ‘teambuilding’ of social and kin groups and networks through photo sharing. The very nature of the inscription often indicated the age or seniority of the author: school-age ‘lined notebook-style’ writings, youthful poetry, popular rhymed phrases on the theme of friendship and memory, arranged diagonally and with underscores and accentuations on some letters. Group photographs in rural areas were rarely signed; however, souvenir photos from the army, places of study, or work often contain some explanatory footnotes.