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The Meaning of Photos in the Context of Memory and Remembering citizens of Tartu. The photos tell the story of a beautiful city marred by war, of how war changed it, how Vanemuine Theatre, the Stone Bridge, churches, streets, and entire quarters of the city centre were turned into ruins. Towards the end of my research I conducted several additional interviews focusing specifically on the historical photographs of Soviet era Tartu. In addition, I searched for further information on this issue when conducting research for the present chapter. In recent years I have followed memory and identity discourse in several Facebook communities and personal blogs dedicated to exhibiting and sharing historical photographs. This led me to the insight that there are many converging aspects between people’s post-war memories and the discourse of historical photographs. In this chapter I am going to discuss the role of historical photos of Tartu both during the Soviet period and today, with a focus on relating and distorting memories, truth and reality, and mediating the discourse of power and identity. A Few Theoretical Anchors for the Following Discussion Estonian professor of photo-semiotics, Peeter Linnap, notes in his monograph Fotoloogia (‘Photology’; Linnap 2006: 123) that all pictures acquire meaning within a context—either in the one in which they were created, or in which they are interpreted. This accounts for the interpretative frame of an image. The interpretation, but even more so the production of photographs, is influenced by power relations in the society. Michael Foucault (1980: 109-134) emphasised the aspect of power in (any) human activity. From this point of view, photos and other images are a manifestation of political power relations which purport to establish and petrify beliefs, convictions and ideals. Contemporary theories of photography claim that “any kind of pictorial presentation promotes someone's interests, be they personal, based on belonging to a social class, visual or chrematistic—not to mention political and ideological interests” (Linnap 2007: 17). Photographs also function as narratives that maintain and guide memories. Historical photos are watermarked with the intent of their author. At the same time, they also help us to understand the past from a more general perspective. Cultural historian Peter Burke has noted that “images may help posterity tune in to the collective sensibility of a past period. At the moment the photographer selects the subject, he takes the position of the historian, immortalising the selected moment on behalf of history, i.e. the future” (Burke 2001: 31 ff). This means that similarly to oral narration, visual representations including photos have a most important role in retaining and guiding memories. Accordingly, they also play a role in creating shared community identity. Peter Burke has also noted that, “even the artistic style known as ‘realism’ has its own rhetoric. They [historians] have pointed out the importance of ‘point of view in photographs and paintings in both the literal and the metaphorical senses 351
