摘要：This article explores the counter-narratives launched againstUkrainian popular and nationalist causes in 2013 and 2014. It engages withsemiotic and visual anthropological theory to articulate how these counternarratives are designed and how they are meant to work. Many pro-Russianacts of propaganda and provocations made use of the specific iconography withwhich Maidan was branded and its participants were branded in publicimagination. This tactic amounted to blatant mimicry, and it appeared incountless forms from Anti-Maidan ‘stickering’ campaigns in Kyiv’s MariinskyPark to Russian soldiers posing as local ‘self defense brigades’ in Crimea. Whilethis visual imitation may appear simple and straightforward, I argue that highlysophisticated semiotic techniques were used to disrupt the interpretation ofphotographic images. This technique exploits the fluidity of what RolandBarthes calls ‘the third meaning’ of images for the purpose of granting theappearance of legitimacy to politically motivated counter narratives. Though these counter narratives cannot be fully evidenced (because they are not true), they accomplish their goals by generating faith in a false objectivity of the image. They dislodge the viewer’s faith in the myth of photographic truth, even while encouraging the viewer to believe in that truth.
