Kilia's sea horizons: the city and its prospects in Nikolaus Kleemann's engraving Kilianova

The publication analyses Nikolaus Kleemann's 18th-century engraving Kilianova, depicting a view of the fortress of Kilia. The author of this article focuses on interpreting the engraving as a visual text. The article emphasizes that historical studies have used the engraving without considering its symbolic content. Special attention is paid to the staffage, compositional techniques and conscious distortions undertaken by the author of the engraving. The author proves in the article that Kilianova engraving is a valuable historical source that enables not only the reconstruction of the lost image of Kilia of the XVIII century but also an understanding of the perceptions of Europeans about the region, as well as the peculiarities of perception and interpretation of what the traveler saw. The work offers us a deeper and more comprehensive analysis of the symbolic content of artworks in historical research.