The magazine Krokodil as a space of the Soviet comic st rip in the 1940s
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2023-9-3-192-217
Abstract
The article is devoted to the history of Soviet comics in the 1940s through the example of the Krokodil magazine. The first part discusses stereotypes about the history of comics in the USSR, analyses the concept of the comic strip as the main form of comics in the Soviet period, and considers the use of Media studies as a framework. The purpose of the article is to examine the work of Krokodil as a space for the development of the Soviet comic strip, through R. Duncan’s and M. J. Smith’s communication model of the comic book. The second part explores the process of work of the magazine’s artists, the censorship by various gatekeepers’ actors, the typical features of the visual language of the Soviet comic strip, the distribution and perception of comic strips and the magazine itself. It is especially noted that the distinction between caricature and comic strip is not typical for the 1940s, and it will emerge only by the 1960s. The article also provides a parsing of a corpus of diaries from the 1940s, in which memories of Krokodil are highlighted. The hypothesis of H. Alaniz about the special role of comics during the Great Patriotic War is verified and questioned.
Keywords
comics,
Krokodil magazine,
Great Patriotic War,
Soviet press,
visual culture studies,
censorship,
Stalinism,
comics studies,
caricature,
propaganda,
satire
Supporting agencies: The article was prepared as part of the Karamzin Scholarships-2022 program with the support of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation and the RANEPA School of Contemporary Humanitarian Studies (Moscow).
About the Author
A. A. Plekhanov
N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Artemii A. Plekhanov - Cand. Sci. (History) Researcher, Center for Ethnopolitical Studies
119334, Moscow, Leninsky Prospekt, 32a
Tel.: +7 (495) 938-00-19
References
1. Abramskii, I. P. (1977). Smekh sil’nykh. O khudozhnikakh zhurnala “Krokodil” [Laughter of the strong. The artists of the magazine Krokodil]. Iskusstvo. (In Russian).
2. Alaniz, J. (2010). Komiks: Comic art in Russia. Univ. Press of Mississippi.
3. Antanasievich, I. (2018). Russkii komiks korolevstva Ιugoslaviia [Russian comics of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia]. Skifiia. (In Russian).
4. Borovskii, A. D. (2010). Popytka komiksa [In attempt at comics]. In Iu. Aleksandrova, & M. Barzakh (Eds.). Russkii komiks (pp. 249–274). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian).
5. Chegodaeva, N. M. (1961). Satiricheskaia grafika i plakat [Satirical graphics and the poster]. In R. S. Kaufman, M. L. Neiman, G. Iu. Sternin, & O. A. Shvidkovskii (Eds.). Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, Vol. 12, Iskusstvo 1934–1941 godov (pp. 472–506). Nauka. (In Russian)
6. Chegodaeva, N. M. (1964). Zhurnal’naia i gazetnaia grafika [Magazine and newspaper graphic art]. In R. S. Kaufman, M. L. Neiman, G. Iu. Sternin, &O. A. Shvidkovskii (Eds.). Istoriia russkogo iskusstva Vol. 13, Iskusstvo 1941–1945 godov (pp. 63–102). Nauka. (In Russian)
7. Dobrenko, E., & Jonsson-Skradol, N. (2021). State laughter: Stalinism, populism, and origins of Soviet culture. Oxford Univ. Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840411.001.0001.
8. Duncan, R., & Smith, M. J. (2009). The power of comics: History, form and culture. Continuum.
9. Earle, H. E. H. (2020). Comics: An introduction. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429317484.
10. Efimov, B. (1961). Osnovy ponimaniia karikatury [Foundations for understanding caricature]. Izdatel’stvo Akademii khudozhestv SSSR. (In Russian).
11. Etty, J. (2019). Graphic satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil’s political cartoons. Univ. Press of Mississippi.
12. Gordon, I. (2020). Comic strips. In C. Hatfield, & B. Beaty (Eds.). Comics studies: A guidebook (pp. 13–24). Rutgers Univ. Press. https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813591452-002.
13. Graham, S. (2009). Resonant dissonance: The Russian joke in cultural context. Northwestern Univ. Press.
14. Hellman, B. (2013). Fairy tale and true stories: The history of Russian literature for children and young people (1574–2010). Brill.
15. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. Harper Collins.
16. Nurok, A. Iu. (1962). Sovetskii plakat v bor’be za kommunizm [Soviet poster in the struggle for Communism]. Izdatel’stvo Akademii khudozhestv SSSR. (In Russian).
17. Polenkov, K. A., & Romanova, T. V. (Eds.). (1984). V gody surovykh ispytanii: Kaluzhskaia oblast’ v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine [In the years of severe trials: Kaluga region in the Great Patriotic War]. Priokskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo. (In Russian).
18. Shevtsova, A. A., & Grinko, I. A. (2021). K voprosu o metodologii issledovaniia vizual’nykh istochnikov (na primere etnicheski markirovannykh siuzhetov sovetskoi karikatury) [The issues of the methodology for the study of visual sources (on the example of ethnically marked plots of the Soviet caricature)]. In M. M. Musarskii, E. A. Omel’chenko, & A. A. Shevtsova (Eds.). Sovremennoe sotsial’no-gumanitarnoe obrazovanie: vektory razvitiia v god nauki i tekhnologii: Materialy VI mezhdunarodnoi konferentsoo, Moskva, 22–23 aprelia 2021 goda (pp. 715–726). Moskovskii pedagogicheskii gosudarstvennyi universitet. https://doi.org/10.37492/ETNO.2021.11.46.091. (In Russian).
19. Strömberg, F. (2022). Comics and the Middle East: Representation, accommodation, integration. Malmö University. https://doi.org/10.24834/isbn.9789178772568.
20. Thon, J.-N., & Wilde, L. (2016). Mediality and materiality of contemporary comics. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7(3), 233–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2016.1199468.
21. White, D. M. (1950). The “gate keeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27(4), 383–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769905002700403.
22. Woo, B. (2019). What kind of studies is comics studies? In F. L. Aldama (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of comic book studies (pp. 1–15). Oxford Univ. Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190917944.013.1.
Review
For citations:
Plekhanov A.A. The magazine Krokodil as a space of the Soviet comic st rip in the 1940s. Shagi / Steps. 2023;9(3):192-217. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2023-9-3-192-217
Views:
112
Email this article 