Looks Also Count: Visual Approach and Historiography of Communism(s)

The purpose of this essay is to examine the extensive historiographic production on communism(s) that has been produced in recent years. Since the middle of the previous decade, this literature has been revitalised by a series of anniversaries which have affected the history of international communism and the main national declinations. In particular, the investigation aims to emphasise the profound ‘torsion’ in a cultural sense that has also influenced this field. Indeed, studies have increasingly placed tropes, narratives and, above all, images at the centre of their investigations, both as an object and as a research perspective. Therefore, the essay reconstructs the evolution of this process, highlighting how today we can speak of a real ‘visual turn’ in the study of communism(s).