«Comrade Pepper!»: the specific of visual satire of the Soviet Ukraine in conditions of the Cold war (1954-1964)

The article is devoted to the visual satire of the Soviet Ukraine of the Cold War times. Within the framework of quantitative and qualitative characteristic to the plots of caricatures on the international topics, appeared during the period of 1954-1964, the author aims to definite the specialties of imaginative and symbolic content of the Ukrainian satirical drawings and to reveal their specific by comparison to the similar publications, which were printed in the press of Union center. All the illustrations were extracted from the Ukrainian magazine “Perets” [“Pepper”] and the newspaper “Pravda Ukrainy” as well as all-Union periodicals “Krokodil” [“Crocodile”] and “Pravda”. The general source base approaches more than 3400 caricatures, which were typologized and explored by frequency and comparative analyses. The study shows, the intensity of publishing of the satirical drawings of international topics in the UkrSSR was comparable with the level of the central press. As in the whole Soviet satire, imaginative and symbolic content compounded of four main figurative methods: socio-political and national-symbolic stereotyping, dehumanization (reflecting enemy by zoomorphic features), fascization. The regional specificity emerged stronger in the pages of the “Perets”, what should be explained through the difference between the practice of the creation of the caricatures for newspapers and magazines. The first ones usually were drawn more quickly, so the more standard set of the textual or visual metaphors of the whole Soviet satire was used. But in the cases of magazines cartoonists had enough time to think over the interpretation of topic and, if necessary, to make it more original and authentic. In general, to the specialties of visual satire of the UkrSSR it should be referred: firstly, the actualization of “local” variant of the outer enemy image such as nationalist-“samostiynik”, who settled in the West; secondly, the urge of the satirical drawings to national symbols and various zoomorphisms; thirdly, the presence of ethno-cultural motives to the approaches of caricatures’ plots, indicated through the references to the classics of Ukrainian literature and even publishing of the foreign Ukranians’ drawings; finally, using the folk sayings and proverbs as the texts for caricatures made the special color. All the above-mentioned features may appear in complex and line up to the joint narrative logic, bringing to the political information about the Cold War motives of a tale or a fable.

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