“Pictures And Illustrations As Imprints Of Social Representations” An Analysis Of Visual Illustrations Of 20 Century Negative Historical Events As Represented In History Textbooks

As part of an extended research aiming to investigate the narratives of 20 century historical events represented in Hungarian history textbooks, the focus of this study is directed to the assessment of the visual representations found in textbooks as images and illustrations to measure the levels of emotional processing of specific events in respect to the Kubler-Ross (1969) grief model. Utilizing qualitative methods, all together 42 illustrations and their short explanations accompanying the illustrations were examined on the bases of their visual content ranked on the grief scale from denial to acceptance. These illustrations serving as beacons by author(s) may represent how Hungarians over the last hundred years have come in terms with events emotionally. Findings indicate that emotional processing of the some events has not been fully completed in the examined period.