Keywords
photography of labor
commodity form
Slovenian photoreportage
myth and photography
symbolic economy
press photography
How to Cite
Abstract
Throughout Slovenia’s history, across the various historical periods of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes through Yugoslav Socialism to the Slovenian Liberal republic—photoreportages have consistently portrayed miners and mining labor through a homogeneous visual style characterized by direct, unassuming photography. This article examines how such depictions functioned within shifting political and ideological contexts, focusing on the intersection of visual representation and socio-mythological construction.
Drawing on Marx’s concept of the commodity form, Barthes’s theory of naturaliza- tion and myth, and structuralist notions of symbolic exchange, the study employs socio-semiotic analysis to reveal how the imagery of miners gave rise to a “visual economy of sameness.” This visual economy abstracted labor into standardized sym- bolic forms, reinforcing dominant ideological narratives and shaping public memory across historical periods. The article argues that the persistent reduction of miners to emblematic visual signs served as a powerful means of constructing the desired collective identities of different socio-political periods.
References
Agricola, Georgius (2011 [1556]): De Re Metallica. Project Gutenberg EBook. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38015/38015-h/38015-h.htm (last access: 2025-12-15).
Althusser, Louis (2014 [1970]): Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes to- wards an Investigation). In: On the Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideologi- cal State Apparatuses.
Arvatov, Boris (2017 [1927]): Art and Production. London, Pluto Press.
Babnik, Jan (2021): Among Miners, Pen and Camera in Hand. In: Babnik, Jan & Julija Hoda (eds.): On the other side. No. 3, Power. Ljubljana, Museum & Galleries of Lju- bljana, 44–61.
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981): The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Austin, University of Texas Press.
Barthes, Roland (1977a [1961]): The Photographic Message. In: Image Music Text. London, Fontana Press, 15–31.
Barthes, Roland (1977b [1964]): Rhetoric of the Image. In: Image Music Text. London, Fontana Press, 32–51.
Barthes, Roland (1991 [1957]): Mythologies. New York, The Noonday Press.
Batchen, Geoffrey (2016): Double Displacement: Photography and Dissemination. In: Gervais, Thierry (ed.): The ‘Public’ Life of Photographs. Toronto, Ryerson Image Center – The MIT Press, 51–85.
Belin, Jože (1964): Zid živih teles. Tovariš, 20, 21, 1964, 8–11.
Benjamin, Walter (2002 [1935]): The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In: Eiland, Howard & Michael W. Jennings (eds.): Selected Writings, Vol. 3, 1935–1938. Cambridge – Massachusetts – London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 101–133.
Brik, Ossip (1989a): The Photograph Versus the Painting. In: Phillips, Christopher (ed.): Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913–1940. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art – Aperture, 213–218.
Brik, Ossip (1989b): What the Eye Does Not See. In: Phillips, Christopher (ed.): Photog- raphy in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913–1940. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art – Aperture, 219–220.
Brik, Ossip (1989c): From the Painting to the Photograph. In: Phillips, Christopher (ed.): Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913–1940. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art – Aperture, 227–233.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991): Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, Harvard Uni- versity Press.
Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. (1984): From Faktura to Factography. October, 30 (autumn), 82–119.
Clark, Nigel & Bronislaw Szerszynski (2020): Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropo- cene Challenge to the Social Sciences. Cambridge, Polity Press.
Craven, Bob (2020): Documenting the Corporate Underworld in Mark Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary. Criticism, 62, 2, 243–270.
Dermastia, Matija (1970): Jutri bo nov dan. Tovariš, 26, 24, 1970, 10–13.
Edwards, Steve (2012): Martha Rosler: The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems. Cambridge (MA), MIT Press.
Finžgar, B. (1959): Velenjski čudež. Tovariš, 15, 16–17, 1959, 484–487.
Flusser, Vilém (2006 [1983]): Towards Philosophy of Photography. London, Reaktion Books Ltd.
Fore, Devin (2006): Introduction. October, 118 (Soviet Factography), 3–10.
Freese, Barbara (2003): Coal: A Human History. New York, Perseus Publishing.
Gačnik, Mija & Ervin Hladnik - Milharčič (1992): Pod mojo deželo. Mladina, 10, 10. 3. 1992, 12–14.
Greimas, Algirdas Julien (1987): On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Guzelj, Igor (1982): Rudarji so rdeče krvničke gospodarstva. Teleks, 16. 12. 1982, 17–20.
Hafner, J. (1931): Iz podzemeljske Ljubljane. Ilustracija, 3, 4, 1931, 121–122.
Hardt, Hanno (1989): Pictures for the Masses: Photography and the Rise of Popular Magazines in Weimar Germany. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 13, 1, 7–29.
Hariman, Robert & John Louis Lucaites (2016): The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Hladnik - Milharčič, Ervin (2007): Od rudnika Stari trg do Cankarjevega doma in nazaj. Dnevnikov objektiv, 8. 12. 2007, 16–19.
Horvatinčić, Sanja (2014): Monuments Dedicated to Labor and The Labor Move- ment in Socialist Yugoslavia. Etnološka tribina: Journal of Croatian Ethnological Society, 44, 37, 169–186.
Hrastar, Mateja A. (2014): Rudarji s solzami v očeh. SIOL, 11. 3. 2014. https://siol.net/novice/slovenija/rudarji-s-solzami-v-oceh-212700 (last access: 2025-12-15).
Ilustracija. Ljubljana, Konzorcij Ilustracije, 1929–1931.
Jančar, Drago (1974): Rdeči revirji grobarji Orjune. 7D, 6. 6. 1974, 10–11.
Jutro. Ljubljana, Konzorcij Jutra, 1920–1945.
Kacin-Wohinz, Milica (ed.) (1965): Fotografski dokumenti o boju komunistične par- tije Slovenije: Zbornik fotografij iz delavskega gibanja in dejavnosti komunistične partije na Slovenskem 1867–1941. 2. zvezek: december 1934 – april 1941. Lju- bljana, Inštitut za zgodovino delavskega gibanja – Muzej ljudske revolucije v Ljubljani.
Keller, Reiner (2013): Doing Discourse Research: An Introduction for Social Scientists. London, SAGE Publications.
Kogej, Rok (2014): Socialistično mesto. Mladina, 28, 11. 7. 2014, 46–50.
Komlosy, Andrea (2018): Work: The Last 1,000 Years. London – New York, Verso.
Kovič, Brane (1990): Za fotografijo. In: Bernik, Stane (ed.): 150 let fotografije na Slovenskem 1919–1945. Ljubljana, Mestna galerija.
Kracauer, Siegfried (1993 [1927]): Photography. Critical Inquiry, 19, 3, 421–436.
Kralj, Franc (ed.) (1970): Rdeči revirji: zbornik fotografskih dokumentov o življenju in boju delavstva v Trbovljah, Zagorju in Hrastniku v letih 1918–1941. 1. del: Obdobje 1918–1934. Trbovlje, Revirski muzej ljudske revolucije.
Krese, Meta (1999): Mesto upokojencev. Mladina, 33, 14. 8. 1999, 38–39.
Lampič, Primož (1990): Slovenska fotografija med obema vojnama. In: Bernik, Stane (ed.): 150 let fotografije na Slovenskem 1919–1945. Ljubljana, Mestna galerija, 28–34.
Lenarčič, Tine (ed.) (2004): Rudarske zgodbe in pripovedi. Trbovlje, Tiskarna Tori.
Lesjak, Miran (1989): Albanci ne pôjejo več. Mladina, 9, 10. 3. 1989, 18–20.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1971 [1949]): The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston, Beacon Press.
Lijster, Thijs (2017): “All Reification Is a Forgetting”: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Dialec- tic of Reification. In: Gandesha, Samir & Johan F. Hartle (eds.): The Spell of Capital: Reification and Spectacle. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 55–66.
Lloyd, Gareth (2008): Commodity Fetishism and Domination: The Contributions of Marx, Lukacs, Horkheimer, Adorno and Bourdieu (MA Thesis). Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145040832.pdf (last access: 2025-12-15).
Marx, Karl (1976 [1867]): Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1: The Process of Production of Capital. London, Penguin Books.
Marx, Karl (2010 [1885]): Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume II. In: Engels, Frederick (ed.): Marx & Engels: Collected Works, Volume 36. London, Lawrence & Wishart.
Mladina. Ljubljana, Mladina d.d., 1943–.
Novak, Daniel A. (2007): Labors of Likeness: Photography and Labor in Marx’s Capital. Criticism, 49, 2, 125–50.
Orwell, George (1958 [1937]): The Road to Wigan Pier. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1955 [1897]): Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs. In: Buchler, Justus (ed.): The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings. New York, Dover Publications, 98–119.
Petrović, Tanja & Ana Hofman (2017): Rethinking Class in Socialist Yugoslavia: Labor, Body, and Moral Economy. In: Jelača, Dijana, Kolanović, Maša & Danijela Lugarčić (eds.): The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia. London, Palgrave Macmillan, 61–80.
Phillips, Christopher (ed.) (1989): Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913–1940. New York, Aperture.
Raztresen, Marjan (1983): Novo življenje živosrebrnega rudnika. Teleks, 14. 4. 1983, 17–19.
Ribalta, Jorge (ed.) (2015): Not Yet: On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism: Essays and Documents (1972–1991). Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Rosler, Martha (2006 [1981]): In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photog- raphy). In: Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975–2001. Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 152–206.
Saussure, Ferdinand de (2011 [1916]): Course in General Linguistics. Edited by Perry Meisel & Haun Saussy. New York, Columbia University Press.
Sekula, Allan (1978): Dismantling Modernism, Reinventing Documentary (Notes on the Politics of Representation). The Massachusetts Review, 19, 4, 859–883.
Sekula, Allan (1983): Photography Between Labour and Capital. In: Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. & Robert Wilkie (eds.): Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Shedden Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton, 1948–1968, Halifax, The Press of Nova Scotia College of Art & Design – The Col- lege of Cape Breton Press, 193–268.
Sekula, Allan (1984): Photography Against the Grain – Essays and Photo Works 1973–1983. Eds. Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. & Robert Wilkie. Halifax, The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design.
Sekula, Allan (2014): An Eternal Esthetics of Laborious Gestures. Grey Room, 55 (spring) (Allan Sekula and the Traffic in Photographs), 16–27.
Sekula, Allan (2018): Fish Story. London, Mack Publishing.
Slovenski poročevalec. Ljubljana, Slovenski poročevalec, 1938–1959.
Šefic, Bogomir (1980): Luč kopačeve toplote. Dnevnik, 3. 7. 1980, 9.
Štefančič, Marcel Jr. (2014): Ne srečno!: Zakaj številni Slovenci krize in recesije ne bodo čutili. Mladina, 12, 21. 3. 2014, 18–20.
Štrumej, Lara (2010): The History of Slovene Photography 1900–1938. In: Macek, Vá- clav (ed.): History of European Photography 1900–1938. Bratislava, Central European House of Photography, 596–611.
Tomanić Trivundža, Ilija & Marija Skočir (2021): Photojournalism and Photoreportage. In: Hoda, Julija & Marija Skočir (eds.): On the Other Side: Slovenian Photoreportage. No. 1, Introduction. Ljubljana, Museum & Galleries of Ljubljana, 30–39.
Tomanić Trivundža, Ilija, Babnik, Jan & Marija Skočir (2021): Photoreportage in the Slovenian Press in 20th Century. A ‘Small’ History in Four Turns. In: Hoda, Julija & Marija Skočir (eds.): On the Other Side: Slovenian Photoreportage. No. 1, Introduction. Ljubljana, Museum & Galleries of Ljubljana, 121–161.
Tovariš. Ljubljana, Delo, 1945–1973.
Tratnik, Polona (2023): Worlds that Make Stories and Stories that Make Worlds: Imagined Societies of Fairy Tales and Folktales. Annales, Series Historia et Sociologia, 33, 4, 593–612.
Traue, Boris, Blanc, Mathias & Carolina Cambre (2019): Visibilities and Visual Discourses: Rethinking the Social with the Image. Qualitative Inquiry, 25, 4, 327–337.
Tret’iakov, Sergei (2006a [1931]): The Writer and Socialist Village. October, 118 (Soviet Factography), 63–70.
Tret’iakov, Sergei (2006b [1931]): From the Photo-Series to Extended Photo-Observation. October, 118 (Soviet Factography), 71–77.
Tsogas, George (2012): The Commodity form in Cognitive Capitalism. Culture and Or- ganization, 18, 5, 377–395.
Uratnik, Filip (1933): Vtisi iz Trboveljskih revirjev. Delavec, 20, 14, 25. 7. 1933, 1–2.
Witschey, Erica (ed.) (2011): The Worker Photography Movement [1926–1939]. Essays and Documents. Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia.
Žitnik, Igor (1989): Scenarij “zlahka obljubljene naglice.” Delavska enotnost, 3. 5. 1989, 1.
Župančič, Jana (2007): Rudnik Trbovlje – Hrastnik v zapiranju: Adijo, knapi! Sobotna priloga, 3. 3. 2007, 12–14.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.