Posters of the Great Patriotic War and modern propaganda

The topic of modern means of propaganda has become relevant since the beginning of the Special military operation, there is a revival of the social propaganda poster in a new digital form. This makes relevant to refer to the Soviet posters of the Great Patriotic War, called the «Third Invisible Front.» The purpose of this study is to examine the features of the use of heroes’ images of national history in posters from the Great Patriotic War and modern posters dedicated to the Special military operation. The research topic is patriotic social posters. Posters from the war years can be considered as a successful example of using the past heroic images in patriotic propaganda for forming national identity. Most posters feature the hero archetype, but modern posters feature images of ordinary soldiers of the Great Patriotic War instead of famous past generals. It expresses a personal emotional connection with the past, creates a sense of belonging for the viewer and is a form of modernization of social experience. When developing modern visual propaganda materials, it is important to take into account the perception peculiarities of different age people with different cultural experiences. The visual symbols should be understandable to viewers of all groups. On the posters of the Great Patriotic War, the archetypes of the people’s collective memory were embodied in the images of the hero and the Motherland. In modern posters, the prevailed hero archetype is understandable to everyone and not ambiguous. The defender image and the hero image are the key to patriotic discourse. The empirical basis of the study was the analysis of digital posters and memes from social networks (Telegram, VKontakte).