Abstract. The article is based on textual and visual evidences and highlights importance of conceptualising a body for constructing the image of the Other. From the 17th to the 19th century, the European literature of travel often exploited this concept as a means to prove cultural backwardness of the peoples isolated from the centres of European civilization. In the 20th century, the concept of body was broadly used in propaganda and especially by totalitarian regimes to create the image of external and internal enemy. The archaic features and stereotypes in constructing body images for such aims seem to be unvarying.

Key words: the Other, visual evidence, literature of travel, body as a construct, language of body, appearance, body practices, colonial discourse, Soviet propaganda

Sokolov Andrei Borisovich,
Doctor in History, Professor,
Dean of the History Faculty
of the Ushinsky Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University (Yaroslavl)
e-mail: sokolov_1457@mail.ru