The image of the Russian province nuns based on visual sources of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

Studying the history of the past, scientists created a certain cult of a written source. In this regard, visual images were perceived only as additional material to the text. Neglect of images led to the loss of a full historical source in the reconstruction of events and phenomena of the past. The visual turn at the end of the 20^th century brought about a change in the research program. Visualism has expanded the source field of research, and enriched methods of data analysis. Photography is not only a fixator of cultural events of everyday life, but also a source of features of the studied region. This research attempts to study the images of the monastic cloisters of the Simbirsk diocese in the second half of the 19^th – early 20^th centuries based on photo sources presented in book editions, online resources, archives of nunneries. The photographs show both abbesses and the nuns of the city nunnery of the Simbirsk eparchy. When analyzing photo sources, the context of creating images was taken into account: design of the photo, background, pose, attributes and information about the authors. The photographs made it possible to construct the image of the nuns of the Russian province and to trace the connection of nunnery with sociocultural phenomena in the urban space at the turn of the 19^th–20^th centuries.