Vizuális percepciók a Nagy Háborúról a hatalom szűrőin keresztül
Visual Perceptions of the Great War through the Filters of Power

An Analysis of the Drawings of Borsszem Jankó, Figaro and Kladderadatsch

Summary/Abstract: In my paper I attempt to study a popular genre of the time: the illustrations of World War I published in satirical magazines. After briefly discussing the peculiarities of the sources, the press regulation of the era and the distinctive features of propaganda, I describe the style and the motif structure of pictures that slipped through the dense web of censorship and were deemed suitable for propaganda purposes. The drawings were published in satirical magazines in Vienna (Figaro), Berlin (Kladderadatsch) and Budapest (Borsszem Jankó). Before analyzing the symbol system of the caricatures, I describe the elements of a special type of pictures (“genre pictures” from the front line) used exclusively in Borsszem Jankó. Looking at the symbols and the propaganda tools in the caricatures we can conclude that their creators, walking in the footsteps of their 19th-century predecessors, used well-known symbols in their drawings over and over again, such as characters from ancient or German myths or Biblical stories. Caricaturists could visually degrade the enemy not only by altering the myths, but also by the distorted depictions of heraldic beasts and of persons or leading politicians representing the hostile countries. Another means of debasement was emphasizing how uncivilized and uncultivated the Entente countries were, as well as depicting how they oppressed smaller nations. I also mention a topic which cropped up exclusively in Borsszem Jankó: in the early stages of the war references were made to the 1848–1849 war of independence in connection with Serbia and Russia, as then it seemed that the time for a revenge had come. Finally, I discuss the territorial claims of the emerging new states as expressed in the caricatures.

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