Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: 'Krokodil''s Political Cartoons by John Etty

Abstract

MLR, .,   and plurality of the Solovki camp experience, preserving the many voices of the camp for future generations of historians and researchers. S F J D Z Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: ‘Krokodil’’s Political Cartoons. By J E. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. .  pp.;  ill. $ (pbk $). ISBN –––– (pbk ––––). is is the first monograph in English on the highly popular and important satirical magazine Krokodil, which was born in the same year as the Soviet Union and outlived it by more than a decade. A monograph in English devoted to Krokodil is long overdue because the journal’s history can shed additional light on the intricate history of Soviet media, satire, and censorship. John Etty’s book, however, focuses on the aw period of –, with occasional references to other epochs. e first three chapters are dedicated to the context of the study, in which Etty goes on a self-assigned crusade against ‘inadequate’ existing interpretations of Krokodil (p. ) and—as he calls it—‘structuralist’ approaches to Soviet media that promote a ‘propaganda paradigm’ (pp. –). Instead, Etty adopts a ‘poststructuralist ’ approach that seeks ‘multiple interpretations and ambiguities in cartoon texts’ (p. ). Leaving aside the unorthodox usage of both terms, the main problem of this otherwise interesting study is that, while repeatedly attacking ‘binarism’ and the vast—but perfectly valid—body of research on state-sanctioned satire, Etty’s own analysis is presented in a contrived and obscure style which leads to misinterpretations and very far-fetched conclusions, not backed up by any archival evidence: for example, ‘eatricalism and the façade, the metaphors that Krokodil employed to satirize official discourses, were explored in ways which highlight the value of subjective observation, rather than official rhetoric or Soviet ideology, as a guide to interpretation’ (p. ). Etty identifies three graphic ‘schemata’ of Krokodil’s visual language: ‘contesting ’, ‘affirmative’ and ‘becoming’ (p. ), the latter referring to the everyday life of ordinary Soviet people. Adopting Bakhtin’s concept of Menippean satire (with all its fourteen characteristics!) (p. ), Etty argues that the ‘becoming’ schema allows for more ambiguous and ‘dialogic’ readings. For example, when discussing cartoons about Soviet bureaucrats, he claims that these satires ‘might be read as more significant political critiques’ (p. ) and that they do not really fit into the ‘propaganda paradigm’ (p. ). is is quite inaccurate because, since its comeback in  as a ‘comrade-in-arms of the Party’, satire was used as a necessary instrument of ‘critique and self-critique’, and ridiculing bureaucracy, inefficiency, and carelessness was officially sanctioned and even encouraged. Furthermore, Etty’s understanding of propaganda (and a few other theoretical concepts) is too narrow, especially considering Krokodil’s genetic connection with agitprop and its didactic and enlightening function. Sometimes Etty’s analysis is disengaged from its context. For example, the  Reviews Kukryniksy’s cartoon ‘Progress’ (p. ) was a satirical comment on Robert Ardrey ’s book African Genesis (), which was briefly summarized in a caption above the cartoon in the following way: ‘[Ardrey] sees gangsters and robbers as the ideal of modern man, the peak of civilization.’ It is therefore evident why the cartoon depicts a prehistoric couple who perplexedly observe a fight to the death between two well-dressed capitalists, thus reinforcing the cliché of the inhumanity of Western civilization, a frequent topic in Soviet satirical cartoons and feuilletons. is context is omitted by Etty, who instead interprets the cartoon as a criticism of capitalist modernity and offers the Bible as a possible referent. e book could have benefited from a comparative analysis of the aw period with, at least, the s (when satire as a genre was under attack) and the late s (when censorship was gradually relaxed). Such a comparison would elucidate much more in terms of the magazine’s engagement with propaganda, norms, ideology, and subversion than Etty’s ‘poststructuralist’ analysis, which turns out to be seriously undercontextualized. Finally, of the devil found in the details. ere are a number of misprints, especially in Russian names; some references are given with a wrong year (Bird et al.); Elem Klimov’s film Welcome, or No Trespassing is incorrectly dated and titled, and there are quite a...