Law, visual culture, and the show trial / Agata Fijalkowski.

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024.

©2024

KJC67.P66 F55 2024

9780367429607 hardcover
0367429608 hardcover
9781032522531 paperback
1032522534 paperback
9781003405771 electronic book
9781000901726 electronic publication
9781000901672 electronic book

xii, 186 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 25 cm.

19014820
(OCoLC)1356724003

"Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show trials. The dispensation of justice during communist rule in Albania, East Germany, and Poland was reliant on legal propaganda, making the visual a fundamental part of the legitimacy of the law. Analysing photographs of trials, this book examines how this message was conveyed to audiences watching and participating in the spectacle of show trials. The book traces how this use of the visual was exported from the Soviet Union and imposed upon its satellite states in the immediate aftermath of World War II. It shows how the legal actors and political authorities embraced new photographic technologies to advance their legal propaganda. Drawing on contemporary theoretical work in the area, the book then challenges straightforward accounts of the relationship between law and the visual, critically engaging entrenched legal historical narratives, in relation to three different protagonists, to offer the possibility of reclaiming and rewriting past accounts. As its analysis demonstrates, the power of images can also be subversive; and, as such, the cases it addresses open onto contemporary questions about law and its inherent performativity. This original and insightful engagement with the relationship between law and the visual will appeal to legal and cultural theorists, as well as those with more specific interests in Stalinism, and in Central, East, and Southeast European history"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online version: Fijalkowski, Agata. Law, visual culture, and the show trial Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023 9781003405771 (DLC) 2022061642

Onsite Print Resources
Shared Records
All Resources