In this MA thesis I want to examine if it is possible to be writing a historical narrative with other tools than words. Rufina Bazlova is a Belarusian textile artist, currently based in Prague, who is telling us her narrative about the falsified elections in Belarus held in August 2020. She does it using embroidery, strongly connected with traditional Belarusian symbols used in the crafts that has been an important source of belief in everyday life for women in Belarus since the early 11th century. What kind of narrative is the artist telling us? In what way can her embroidery be seen as cultural memories? I am using the methods formal analysis by Heinrich Wölfflin and iconography and iconology by Erwin Panofsky to explore the hidden meanings in five of Bazlovas embroidery pieces, Female solidarity, Parliament House, Streets of Belarus, Solidarity with Soligorsk and Run from a gun. They are all a part of the work of art named Belarusian Vyzyvanka. I am placing Bazlovas embroidery in the context of cultural memories by looking at them with the eyes of different researchers in the field of cultural memory studies. The thesis has a range from descripting the meaning of traditional textile symbols to implementing the methods of art history. I am continuing with placing the embroidery into the field of cultural memory studies and asking questions about freedom of speach and the political situation in Belarus today. I am looking back in the Belarusian history to find some of my answers and I am adding a transnational perspective to my examination.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-52226 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Billsdotter Jonsson, Cecilia |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0033 seconds