Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Terra Sebus: Acta Musei Sabesiensis, Special Issue, 2014, p. 177-186 

 

 

RECEPTION OF THE ICARUS MYTH IN THE MASS ART OF  

THE LATE 

20TH

-21ST CENTURY 

 

 

Evgeny Aleksandrovich CHIGLINTSEV



 

 

 

One of the most important fields of research in modern historical science is 

a focused analysis of the public demand for reception of the historical past 

and the study of creative practices through exploration of how past social 

and cultural realities are understood in the modern world. A significant 

topic in this field deals with modern socio-cultural reality as a construct that 

embodies the synthesis of social needs in accessing the historical past and 

the representations of historical experience, historical phenomena and 

images of historical figures. Through this approach, the reception of the 

past can be treated as a way of updating, interpreting and representing 

historical experience, traditions and national mythology in the form of social 

presentations for modern society. 

In the second half of the 20

th

 century, the humanities and social 

sciences started to adopt, along with the term “notion,” such definitions as 

“group,” “mass” and “social”; now “from the standpoint of sociology and 

social psychology, researchers use this term [notion] as a synonym for 

‘knowledge,’ i.e. socially objectified ‘opinions.’”

1

 However, these opinions 

are formed from individual representations. The need for a shift in the 

perception of past periods in time - not just at the level of the individual 

self-interest of the creative artist but taking into account broader socio-

cultural practices and social needs - has become apparent within the frame 

of the study of social-historical consciousness.

2

 

To understand the relationship of the individual and society in 

shaping perceptions of the past, the position expressed by Wojtsech 

Vzhozek on developing within the “new historical science” a social history 

of culture as a method of learning past has become fundamental. Vzhozek 

uses the concept “social-subjective” as opposed to “subjective individual” 

as a way to understand the historical situation of the past. This allows the 

researcher to somehow decrypt the “mysterious dialectic” linking the 

                                                 



 Kazan Federal University, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; e-mail: 

[e-mail]. 

1

 Savelyeva, Poletayev 2008, p. 35. 

2

 Repina 1996, p. 35. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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E. A. Chiglintsev 

 

178

consciousness of the individual to the collective consciousness.

3

 John Tosh 

also expresses solidarity with this approach, proposing that the 

interpretation of history is formed with the help of social rather than 

personal experience. Since social values are changing, consequently the 

interpretation of history is becoming the subject of constant re-evaluation.

4

 

One of the most popular periods for representation in the history of 

mankind is the period of classical antiquity, in which societies with 

European cultural roots began to take an interest during the Middle Ages 

and have not ceased to do so up to the present day. This can be seen clearly 

from analysing the reception of antiquity through the example of a 

particular culture formation - the European cultural and historical 

community - chronologically belonging to the period from the end of the 

19

th

-beginning of the 21

st

 century. Firstly, it combines traditional and 

innovative approaches to antiquity; secondly, it connects classical, modern 

and post-modern cultures; thirdly, it includes both academic and mass 

culture; and fourthly, it shows the possibility of the harmonious co-

existence of the national and the universal under the conditions of cultural 

globalisation. 

In modern society, mass culture targeting the broad strata of 

consumers plays a special role in the representation of ancient heritage. Any 

product of mass culture based on the representation of antiquity plays the 

role of a social message. At the same time antiquity, as a general, well-

known cultural heritage of the past, has become a very common source of 

inspiration for contemporary directors, screenwriters, writers, visual artists 

and musicians. Specifically, those events, phenomena and characters whose 

images are updated through modern socio-cultural processes arouse the 

interest of the non-professionals. In this regard antiquitywith its limited 

reserves of study-able source material and two-century-long tradition of 

research, thanks to which almost everything that is associated with 

modernity has been repeatedly analysed and proposed to society - becomes 

simply an invaluable field for the self-realisation of any individual. 

In these multi-genre and stylistically different works, antiquity is split 

into a set of images; when real characters from antiquity are actively 

mythologised they loose their historical context, but each of them has their 

own semantic and semiotic content and a certain modern intellectual or 

cultural context.

5

 

The creators of such works often focus on classical - especially Greek 

- myth among the myths of ancient heritage that are actively studied by 

                                                 

3

 Vzhozek 1991, p. 72. 

4

 Tosh 2000, p. 164. 

5

 Chiglintsev 2009, p. 212-220, 240-241, 263, 284. 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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