Political Iconography and Pedagogy during State-Socialism

Abstract

The study aims to reveal the connections and affects between political iconography and pedagogy, during Hungarian state-socalism – with a description of a Lenin-picture. This topic has not been investigated yet, although visual propaganda played an important role in socialization and indoctrination, tried to create and found a new ceremonial-ritual order and the socialist identity. Bourdieu pointed out that the eye and the perception is a historico-sociological construction (Bourdieu, 1996. 313–322.): the following analyzed pictures have been bearing different functions and meanings then and now, transforming photographs and contexts could manipulate viewers at that decade, too. My researches are based upon a corpus of Hungarian pedagogical journals, between 1960 and 1970, supplemented by original sources of the pictures. The starting point was a photo, published in 1970, on the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birthday, showing a seemingly unconventional representation: Lenin as a child.