Dmitry Tsykalov (Voljsky Institute of Humanities of Volgograd State University – Russia)

War cartoons and foreign-policy stereotypes in the European culture of the 20 th century.

Today satirical pictures are an essential element of the editorials of the largest periodicals. It can provide historians with valuable information about the reaction of the society consisting of people not involved in "great policy" and sometimes the reaction of members of the political elite. As learners often notice, satirical drawings become especially demanded during crisis and wars. According to the tradition coming from the time of Walter we can explain this phenomenon with the help of the theory that laugh as well as sleep and hope is rather necessary for people to resist life sufferings and troubles. During the war time cartoons play a role of the relaxant lowing the feeling of fear, relaxing. The social role of laughing has two sides. The laugh can make people closer to each other as well as separate them. It should be mentioned that cartoonists usually don't criticize the horror of the war or the faults of their military leaders ("The disasters of war" by J. Callow and F. Goya are to be an exception). Their main target is a military enemy the battle with whom takes place on the information field. As a rule these negative stereotypes are unlikely to be influenced by integration and globalization. European nations consider images of each other based on cartoons that appeared during the Cold War, the World Wars and even earlier. These images turned out to be rather settled.

I would mention that historiography of international relationships till the 90s of the 20 th century paid attention to the facts of political and diplomatical life not noticing the stereotypes and social mechanisms.

Today nobody doubts the necessity of the differentiated point of view. The methodological crisis of 1980-1990s (the post soviet historical science) stimulated scientists to look for new ideas. As the Cold War ended historians did not need to use the Marxist clichés and the ideological clichés adopted in the epoch of the-two-system-opposition. The ideological and historiographical clichés became the object of studying. At the same time the new geopolitical situation showed the uselessness of old schemes. During the last years there appeared a lot of interesting works devoted to the images of enemies and allies, formed by the military political propaganda. Scientists learn the influence of stereotypes on the process of taking foreign-policy decisions, the behaviour of groups and the position of an individual man. The list of sources used by historians enlarged. The attitude to visual sources (such as posters, cartoons, comics, lubbock , advertisements, films) has changed. Now the visual sources are taken not like funny illustrations of the current events able to brighten the studying, but as an access to important processes, that take place in the society. For the history of the foreign-policy they are interesting because of the image of “the other person” presented in its plots. The learning of such a specific source as war cartoons may let one find out the origin and the aims of negative stereotypes often preventing nations from mutual understanding.

I study the foreign-policy stereotypes as they are linked with my childhood of the last 1970s-early 1980s. The ideas of the world got in one's childhood are known to form one's subconsiousness. Understanding these ideas a person becomes free from fear of "foreign world". Political cartoons in the main soviet periodicals and satirical magazines played a great role in spreading of soviet foreign-policy ideology among people of my age, who did not even have skills of reading. Each issue of these magazines, spread among the masses at large, was devoted to the worldwide political events. The main character of its cartoons was an american - Uncle Sam. He had something in common with the Wolf - the main character of the tale - the Wolf and the Seven Kids. He seemed to be rather crafty and terrible, but everybody believes that mother-goat will come and save everyone. The situation in the world didn't seem to be simple, but it was easy to understand it. There was the System of Evil - that appealed to War. And there was the System of Good - we are - that appealed to Peace. The Good always wins. During the collapse of the soviet ideology in the years of "perestroika" the main papers and satirical magazines didn't appeal to the image of an American enemy anymore. For some time the society felt the excitement regarding the West countries. In my opinion, this situation was displayed on the poster that parodied one popular national image. In the poster there was a naked girl in kokoshnik and with bread and salt. A signature cried "welcome to Russia ". But excitement was not very long. After the disintegration of the USSR and the beginning of liberal reforms patriotic papers reappealed to the hostile image of an american. After the disintegration of the USSR and the beginning of liberal reforms patriotic papers reappealed to the hostile image of an american. The soviet propaganda used stereotypes to show vices of capitalism. The opposite Mass Media simply borrowed them for the reforms and following social phenomena. Patriotic cartoons drew the president and members of the liberal cabinet among the Americans. This pointed to the pro-american and anti-patriotic politics of the 1990s. The opposition used such images to stimulate its voters. The suggested identity that showed Russia in opposition to the West was not taken as the national one, and the middle 1990s added to the political division of the society.

The metamorphosis of the cartoons during the 1990s pointed to the problem of searching of the identity in the countries of the USSR and East Europe , to the attempts of constructing the universal european identity. In practice, these searches showed interdependence of integration and disintegration. In my opinion, the common thing is that the forming identity is negative. It's built on one principle: "I'm not like this one, I'm different". Perhaps, it's normal, but in this case, it uses prejudices, images of the enemy. The state frontiers inside the European Union have almost disappeared, but the main and the only real frontiers are cultural. I suppose, the situation became more complicated because the east European countries entered the EU. I think the comparison of the identity searches in ex-USSR countries and inside the EU may let us better understand political and-cultural mechanisms, particularly the role of visual images. I believe that the influence of the past is important to mention in this question.

The aim of this work is to study the role of war cartoons in forming foreign-policy stereotypes in the European culture of the 20 th century. Below I will tell mainly about the prospects of such studying.

Satirical graphics has long history as a kind of art. But historians argue when the first cartoon was drawn and in what cultural epoch it appeared. Obviously, cartoons were produced due to the man's nature - his sense of humour and ability to laugh. First cartoons are likely to appear in the Stone Age. They served for ashaming of enemies and unpopular tribe leaders. A new step in its development cartoons made in antique times due to love of ancient Greeks to the dialectics and dialogs. During this epoch there were made first attempts to analyze and to critic cartoons. Pauson was the first cartoonist whose name was mentioned in history. But Aristotle condemned his art . He thought that drawing people worse than they were was useless and harmful. Cartoons expressed public opinion opposite to the governors. The examples of middle-aged cartoons saved till our time are more numerous. As the mass genre the satirical graphics appeared in Europe during the period of spreading the mass media in the 18 th - first half of the 19 th century. Due to the development of communication cartoons begin to play a great role in influence on political interests of Europeans.

?? deride and to humiliate the enemy is the part of the complicated propagandistic ritual, in which the satirical drawings are rather natural. The aim of the propagandistic action is to weaken enemy's force. Creating the image of the enemy the press appeals to the rational perception, on the contrary, the cartoons appeal to the emotional perception. As well as posters cartoons make viewers act. The weak and comical image of the enemy is created to support the confidence in an inevitable victory.

The authors of cartoons not only use stereotypes of the enemy nation existing in people's mind but also create new ones inspired by the specific of the war. Some graphic images being too annoying easily become labels and remain in people's mind for a long time. These labels build the attitude to the enemy nation. For example, during the First World War russian cartoonists created an image of a german presenting him like "a civilized barbarian". (On one of the pictures he was drawn as a wild man who was sitting on the books by Kant, Hegel and other philosophers and eating a child's leg). Changed a bit this stereotype was also used during the Great Patriotic War by soviet cartoonists. It entered the soviet pop-culture, especially, the cinema.

To my mind, cartoons popular during wars should be divided, for example, on the coverage scale of the society. Satirical posters and cards appeal to the mass readers, they are usually permitted and published by the government. On the contrary, newspaper cartoons may appeal to the narrow groups of people. Readers are interested in the paper's political section. It may be opposite and the same may be about cartoons. In the pre-Revolutionary Russia educated people read newspapers. At the same time uneducated population preferred popular satirical pictures. Researches from different points of view let compare the reaction of different groups on the same events.

As we can see, military cartoons try to influence public opinion. But the reaction may be opposite. Scornful attitude to an enemy may harm war spirit. If the government realizes this fact, it tries to change visual images. For example, the evolution of the image of the enemy during the Great Patriotic War. At first, german soldiers were imaged as cowardly and silly men, but then as cruel rapists and murderers. The result of such propaganda is well-known.

The images of enemies at the military cartoons are often personal (Napoleon, Wilhelm II, Hitler, Stalin, Truman). Identification of the enemy with the known politician is more popular than a general idea of the enemy. Personification has greater influence because of its realism. But a historical face appearing in cartoons becomes a symbol (f.e., Wilhelm II is associated with the german militarism). The image of the enemy can be collective (such as capitalism, NATO, the USA , Israel , communism, national symbols). Cartoonists of different countries also use common symbols for portraying an enemy, drawing him as a snake, a beast or a mythological character. We should not forget that the war cartoons are an essential instrument of forming the national identity. The image of a "home" person is quite opposite to the image of a foreigner. Herewith the “home” things unlike the “foreign” ones more often appears as generalized because a positive image is easier to form if it is not connected with the exact person, depersonalized.

Due to the surface comparison of cartoons of hostile countries we can notice common methods of propaganda. One of the most popular methods is a reflected image. Counterpropaganda uses hostile images, reflects it in its own way. F.e., at the american WWI poster we can see a cow-boy boot above the Kaiser. Another example is a Cold War cartoon of Bidstroop that shows an american boot as threat to the world. Moreover the careful studying of the counterpropaganda can be used for understanding the national psychology. As far as I am concerned, such method can be used concerning russian people. Russian people believe that they are special. As a result, we can see russian messionism as well as self-torture. Russian people often think that they can meet different misfortunes only in Russia . They compare what they have with the living conditions of the Europeans and always lose, as it seems. But western scientists often forget about Russian self-criticism. It comes from foreign stereotypes about Russia . West stereotypes of Russia to some extension feed the Russian nihilism concerning Russian people. From this point of view the antirussian traditions in European cartoons present an important way to the complexes of Russian consciousness.

In my point of view, it's very important to pay more attention to the national peculiarities of cartoons. Due to the comparing analysis of military cartoons of different European countries we can find out national specifics. Claus Washik proved this theory in his recent research concerning german and russian images of the enemy in posters of the 30s-50s. To my regret , such works are few . Nevertheless, the comparing analysis, first of all, helps to define the kind of satire and its role in forming the image of the enemy by the propaganda of this or that regime (what help to understand the regime itself). Moreover, it gives opportunity to understand the national humour that can open the secret of the national psychology. It is especially interesting to compare the cartoons of hostile blocks and countries. It should be useful to compare cartoons of hostile countries and to form groups of scientists from different European countries. The satirical graphics of the countries who waged war could be analyzed in comparison (f.e., Russia/Germany, Great Britain/Germany, the USSR/Italy, France/Italy, Russia/Bulgaria, the USSR/Romania, Serbia/Austria-and-Hungary, Italy/Romania). As the members of the unions changed in the 20 th century, comparing research of visual foreign-policy stereotypes can be extremely important.

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