For my final assignment, I will be analyzing political cartoons as a form of reality construction from the Soviet Union era. I will examine the way these political cartoons created nationalistic sentiment in the Soviet Union in the face of broader Western influence. In other words, I ask: What role did political cartoons take in culturally validating the U.S.S.R.? This will include any paper medium, primarily but not limited to, posters and political comics in the newspaper. My analysis will be guided by Edward Bernays’ philosophy towards public relations and marketing, which approached marketing as a way to construct the reality of the general population.
There will not be an explicitly artistic component for this project, though my essay will be printed out on printer paper to emulate the physical medium these political cartoons were consumed in at the time. I hope to find a political cartoon in the form of a newspaper clipping or poster to analyze in Special Collections and have emailed Anna for a direction of where to look.
Annotated Bibliography
David-Fox, Michael. The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/111641.
Studies the role of the secret police in the Soviet Union through archives of “information, technology, economics, art, and ideology”. David-Fox attempts to get a full picture of the Soviet secret police through a variety of different archives.
Etty, John. Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil’s Political Cartoons. University Press of Mississippi, 2019. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/63713.
Etty focuses on the popular and long-lasting satirical magazine Krokodil (especially from the years 1954 to 1964). The magazine was “the most significant, influential source of Soviet graphic satire” and was in production for over 70 years
Norris, Stephen. “The Weapon of Laughter: Soviet Political Cartoons and the Making of a State Viewer.” Ab Imperio, vol. 2021 no. 3, 2021, p. 171-179. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/imp.2021.0058.
A lecture from a Professor of Russian Studies Stephen Norris regarding Soviet Union popular cartoonist Boris Efimov, who drew many caricatures and political cartoons.
Peteri, Gyorgy. Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. 1 ed. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1442.
Peteri describes how various indicators in architecture, film, writings, products, and more indicate shifts in Western ideals among Eastern Europeans. Acceptance of Western ideals make it not possible for Communism to meet the needs of its people, thus contributing to its downfall.
Smith-Peter, Susan. “Rethinking: “The Russian Archives”.” Ab Imperio, vol. 2022 no. 2, 2022, p. 63-69. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/imp.2022.0032.
Pushes the idea that Russian archival work overwhelmingly takes place in Russia as opposed to examining Russian archives present in the United States (specifically Alaska because it was owned by Alaska for a significant period of time and Pennsylvania for its Russian immigrant population) and Ukraine. In other words, the author is saying that Russian archives exist in many more, less-searched places than Russia.
Starks, Tricia. Cigarettes and Soviets: Smoking in the USSR. Cornell University Press, 2022. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/99516.
Starks analyzes the massive success of cigarettes in the USSR, specifically how it became and why it continues to be so popular.
Velychenko, Stephen. Propaganda in Revolutionary Ukraine: Leaflets, Pamphlets, and Cartoons, 1917–1922. University of Toronto Press, 2019. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/108060.
This book goes over the various dissemination giants (both governmental and corporate) in Ukraine from 1917-1922, their publishing techniques, and both their successes and failures.
Waterlow, Jonathan. “Sanctioning Laughter in Stalin’s Soviet Union.” History Workshop Journal, vol. 79, 2015, p. 198-214. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/579908.
This research examines humor in the Soviet Union, noting how it has previously been perceived by researchers and how it is actually more nuanced than expected. The state ultimately would decide what was or was not acceptable humor in a relatively arbitrary manner.
I think this is an interesting project, but I’m not yet seeing how it connects to or builds from the class– in other words, what specifically is the connection to book history or bookishness? Your primary research question is also far too broad for this final project.: “What role did political cartoons take in culturally validating the U.S.S.R.?” Return to my emails, from our correspondence, for further explanation; but this is just way too big of a research question to address, and it is also not one that you can answer by using the frames or central texts of this class. I might, instead, focus on a specific cartoon or a few of them and do a deep dive into their publication histories—in other words, a kind of biography of the comic as you did in the biography of a book midterm. Let’s set another meeting to discuss, but I think you need to rethink the framing on this one.