Hitler’s Dogs: Non-Human Animals in Soviet Political Cartoons of the “Great Patriotic War,” 1941–1945

By Reeta Kangas

Abstract

During wartime, propaganda has a significant role in raising the fighting morale of the nation as well as in stirring up animosity towards the enemy. One of the most famous artists groups taking part in the visual propaganda effort in the Soviet Union during World War II was the Kukryniksy trio, consisting of Mikhail Kupriyanov, Porfiri Krylov and Nikolai Sokolov. Their use of symbolic devices derived largely from cultural memory. In this article, with close reading and contextualization, I examine the interplay of the visual and textual devices in Kukryniksy’s work during the “Great Patriotic War” (1941–1945). More specifically, I concentrate on the political cartoons with non-human animals in them. The animal symbols vary from ones evoking fear and hatred to ones that humiliate and belittle.

Keywords: animal symbolism, enemy depictions, Great Patriotic War, Kukryniksy, political cartoons, Pravda, propaganda, World War II, Soviet Union

Introduction

Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let go of its nuts. (Tolstoy 990–91; bk. XI, ch. 13)

Like Tolstoy’s description of the monkey and the French, the Germans in Soviet wartime political cartoons grab what they can, hold onto it, and, presumably, perish. This is one of the issues which the famous Kukryniksy trio constantly raises in their wartime artwork, with an intertextual reference based on the interplay of the visual and the textual of the Russian literary classics. ¹ The Kukryniksy trio—Mikhail Kupriyanov (1903–1991), Porfiri Krylov (1902–1990), and Nikolai Sokolov (1903–2000)—was one of the most prolific propaganda artist groups in the Soviet Union. They worked together from their student days in the Moscow-based art school Vkhutemas in the 1920s all the way through the 1980s and the first death within the trio. Their career was so appreciated by Soviet leaders that in 1973, Kukryniksy received the highest Soviet honorary title: “Hero of Socialist Labour.” Kukryniksy’s work was widely known in the Soviet Union even before World War II, which brought them fame also abroad. For example, they were included in a 1946 exhibition On Being a Cartoonist in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition’s press release even regarded them as belonging to “the greatest and most powerful cartoonists of the past and present” (MoMA).

One of Kukryniksy’s many wartime political cartoons implicitly raises the question of what is the use of scarves, stockings, lipstick, alarm clocks, and a samovar for an orangutan (figure 1, “Bronirovannyi gromila”). The image of the looting orangutang was published in combination with Vasily Lebedev-Kumach’s (1898–1949) poem in Pravda on 3 August 1941, six weeks after Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union and the beginning of the “Great Patriotic War,” as the war years 1941–1945 are traditionally known in Russian. Kukryniksy’s use of a primate to describe the Germans as pillaging marauders functions as a culturally imbued reference to the scene of French soldiers leaving Moscow in 1812 in Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Non-human animal imagery, firmly rooted in the cultural memory of the nation, was an important technique for Kukryniksy to compose state-approved, ridiculing and belittling (at times even frightening) portraits of the enemy. All the animal symbols in Kukryniksy’s wartime images were negatively loaded. Their purpose was to represent the enemy’s negative qualities and to show the enemy as less than human. Furthermore, depicting the enemy as animal-human hybrids positioned the enemy in an impure position and evoked uncomfortable feelings, even hinting at bestiality.  The propaganda cartoons gave the impression that if nothing is done about the Nazi threat, the world will be ruled by ruthless beasts who are willing to sacrifice human beings to reach their own ends. Thus, the animal symbols served to dehumanize the enemy and support the overall Soviet propaganda effort.

Using animal symbols, in political cartoons in general and war cartoons in particular, is an effective way to transmit propaganda messages. Such symbolism has been widely used during various wars and conflicts in Russia, as well as elsewhere. ² According to Steve Baker (46–47), visual war propaganda employing animal imagery owes its success to the images being comprehensive without detailed knowledge of the latest war events and depending rather on the culturally significant symbolic connotations attached to non-human animals in enemy descriptions. Therefore, and partially due to space considerations, I do not include detailed descriptions of actual war events in my analysis of the cartoons. Additionally, as I will discuss in more detail later, the Soviet Union exercised strong control over how the war and its events were allowed to be depicted and described. For example, the message told by the image of the orangutan transporting his loot on a tank is clear without knowledge of the war situation. There is no specific information about war events, merely general descriptions of the characteristics and usual actions of soldiers in war. The image’s allusion to Tolstoy’s work and the “Patriotic War” fought against Napoleon in 1812 emphasizes such generality regarding the nature of soldiers in war.

In this article, I examine the use of non-human animal imagery in Kukryniksy’s Pravda political cartoons published during the “Great Patriotic War.” In general, Kukryniksy’s political cartoons belong within the European tradition of political cartooning and visual propaganda. However, I argue that the specificities and subtler nuances of the cartoons and their animal symbolism are deeply rooted in their own cultural context and significantly dependent on the cultural memory of the audience. I am especially interested in the interplay of visual and textual elements in Kukryniksy’s use of non-human animals and in the role of cultural memory for constructing messages in their political cartoons.

Thus, this examination concentrates on the notions of specific non-human animals in the Soviet Russian cultural context and, especially, how these notions enable the use of animals in art, so as to influence and mould the opinions of the audience towards the officially accepted view of the war. Typically for visual propaganda, Kukryniksy’s imagery uses a menagerie of non-human animals, most of them hybrids of human and non-human animal body parts. The use of animal symbolism in wartime propaganda is typical also in contemporary settings. Thus, the examination of Soviet propaganda rhetoric helps to understand the development of Soviet propaganda and its heritage, visible in contemporary post-Soviet settings.

To contextualize my analysis, I will first discuss the theoretical framework of Soviet propaganda, art, and memory, within which I analyse my primary material. Then, I examine Kukryniksy’s work as artists, and in wartime propaganda, especially as political cartoonists for Pravda. Simultaneously, I describe my primary material and methodological approach. Thereafter, I discuss the use of non-human animals in visual propaganda. In the subsequent three sections, I analyse Kukryniksy’s use of primates, wild animals, and domestic animals as visual symbols in their political cartoons. In the final section, I draw conclusions and consider the development of Kukryniksy’s visual language.

Art, Propaganda, and Memory in the Soviet Context

Art in general had a specific function in the Soviet Union. In a state that strictly controlled its imagery, also art was harnessed to serve the state’s ideological and propagandistic aims. Art was not seen as having a purpose at the level of individuals, but at the level of the masses; the purpose of art was to educate the masses (Groys, Art Power 145). It had a didactic function. In 1932, Socialist Realism was established as the only allowed Soviet art form. Boris Groys explains that Socialist Realism’s aim was not to depict what already was, but to show the ideal that should be realized in the Communist future (The Total Art of Stalinism 51). The word realism referred to the form, not the content (Groys, Art Power 144–45).

Fitting political cartoons within the framework of Socialist Realism may seem troublesome: political cartoons are not realist in form, nor do they necessarily depict ideals. However, moving away from the realist form was permitted in caricature. It is worth noting, though, that in political cartoons, the Soviet side is depicted in a realist form: enemies drawn in caricature were defeated by naturalistically drawn Soviet entities (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 190–91). Furthermore, in enemy descriptions, the enemy’s characteristics and behaviour function as an oppositional defining mechanism for “us” and the values “we” stand for (Eco 10–11). That is, the negative connected to the enemy, puts “us” in the opposite, positive, light. Thus, the political cartoons depict ideals in inverse.

Generally, propaganda is often understood as an intentional and organized attempt to influence and manipulate people’s thinking, world views, and actions (see Ellul 111; Jowett and O’Donnell 7; Lasswell 13; Taylor 6–7). However, the definitions of propaganda are dependent on their cultural, social and temporal context. In the Soviet Union, propaganda could be either negative or positive depending on whether it referred to enemy countries’ activity, i.e., negative brainwashing, or the Soviet Union’s own activity, i.e., positive education (see Kangas, Cartoon Fables 40–41). Furthermore, in the Soviet Union, propaganda functioned as a part of governing the state and educating its citizens (Kenez 8; Taylor 202). Especially in wartime, but also in times of peace, the state rigorously managed the Soviet media environment. Mass media was one of the most significant channels for spreading propaganda in the Soviet Union (Wolfe 5–7). Indeed, government-controlled media was one of the means of fulfilling propaganda’s didactic function.

The Soviet media controllers instructed those working within the field what to report and how to report it. Also political cartoonists, working for various newspapers and journals, had to follow the official protocol of the state, especially in war reporting. The war news—the “truth” about the war—was carefully manufactured and guarded attentively. What happened during the war domestically, internationally, and militarily were topics under the control of the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo), which was established in June 1941, two days after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), in turn, was in control of spreading the information which the Sovinformburo provided (Berkhoff 13–14). However, an artist producing war propaganda was not necessarily dependent on official information regarding war events. Many artists, including Kukryniksy, visited the front. But they still had to follow the official instructions on what was allowed to be told about the war and to whom. Accordingly, many of the wartime posters and political cartoons are so general in their depiction of a loathsome enemy or a glorified Soviet hero that the artists could have produced them with no knowledge of the war events.

Already before Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, visual propaganda, heavily reliant on the strong tradition of Russian visual culture, had a prominent role in Soviet state propaganda (Norris 4). For example, the Russian lubok and icon traditions had a strong influence on Soviet visual language (Sytova 7; Tarasov 369). ³ Later Russian visual culture, including comics, would build on this tradition of visuality with influences from other comics cultures (see Alaniz, Komiks, Resurrection). That the audience already had the appropriate visual literacy improved the efficacy of Soviet propaganda (Kivelson and Neuberger 6). Furthermore, the employment of the nation’s cultural memory facilitated an easier interpretation process for the audience (see Erll 2–5). During the war, relying on traditional visual language, Soviet artists produced posters, political cartoons, TASS windows, leaflets, postcards, and other propaganda material to be distributed on the home and enemy fronts. ⁴

Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney describe cultural memory as a process of remembering and forgetting within which the relationship of individuals as well as groups with the past is repetitiously rebuilt (2–5). In this process, the media act as mediators. Furthermore, media are always dependent on other media as well as on societal and economic factors. According to Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, visual culture is largely based on remediation—that is, the recirculation of material through various media, within which elements of cultural memory become repeatedly reused, creating ever new ways of framing various topics (56).  Thus, certain culturally significant aspects become strengthened and can then better guide the audience’s interpretation processes.

Both propaganda and political cartoons rely heavily on cultural memory and the background knowledge it provides (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 48; Müller and Özcan 289). The actor attempting to shape the audience’s perceptions relies on means related to the audience’s cultural background, such as language, images, and symbols (Jowett and O’Donnell 8–9). The audience’s interpretation process may be further enhanced by textual elements that frame the image, such as titles, captions, and poems (Lamb 49). The visual and textual elements together enable a guided reading of their sum (see Gombrich 142). Indeed, references to and moulding of cultural memory is a significant part of forming messages meant to influence audiences.

During the “Great Patriotic War,” Kukryniksy, along with other wartime propaganda artists, created many images that became something akin to what Groys calls “icons of the contemporary collective imagination” (Art Power 122–23). Even though Groys writes of current-day media imagery, this concept is also applicable to the Soviet context. In the Soviet Union of the 1940s, the nation relied on newspaper and radio reporting on the war. The images encountered in newspapers, as well as in posters, would have become the contemporary iconic images of the war.

Soviet wartime propaganda had several functions, some of which were dependent on the war situation. In the beginning of the war, it was necessary to bring back the enemy, which had been deliberately forgotten in Soviet propaganda since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939. A good example of such an instance is the first political cartoon published in Pravda after the start of the war. It was a cartoon published nearly a month into the war, in July 1941, and was drawn by Boris Yefimov (“Berlinskaia razboinichʹia banda”). ⁵ In the cartoon, Yefimov juxtaposed a mocking account of what a true Aryan should be like—tall like Goebbels, slim like Göring, and blond like Hitler—with caricatured images of the said persons with the opposite qualities exaggerated. The image was remediated by various other media, also internationally. ⁶ The reproduction of images in other formats was a typical practice. This is true of Kukryniksy’s work as well. ⁷

In such a manner, Soviet propaganda attempted to make the nation aware of the enemy’s identity and character, and concurrently aimed to spur the nation’s will to fight. Such enemy depictions also made use of the enemy’s physical features in communicating to the nation. The propaganda images of Hitler and other Nazi leaders formed into iconic portrayals in the nation’s collective imagination. At later stages, with Soviet victories, celebrative images appeared in visual propaganda; concrete losses, in turn, were not discussed in visual propaganda (the closest approach to this topic involves depictions of enemy atrocities). There are no depictions of neutral countries, apart from some cartoons insinuating that Switzerland aids Germany in the war effort (e.g. Kukryniksy, 13 January 1945). The functions of visual propaganda also seem to have varied according to the type of the material. For example, in posters there were depictions of Soviet soldiers in a heroic light—such depictions were not made in Pravda’s political cartoons, mainly reserved for depicting the enemy. ⁸

Kukryniksy and Pravda

Kukryniksy are most famous for their satirical propaganda imagery, such as political cartoons, posters, and TASS windows, but their oeuvre included also, for example, book illustrations, theatre sets, portraits and paintings. In 1942, they even painted a tank for the Red Army (see Gorianina). Yet, they were most active within political art, especially political cartoons. The leading newspaper for publishing political cartoons was Pravda (Yefimov, Na moi vzgliad… 13–14). Kukryniksy started to work for Pravda in the early 1930s and continued to work for this newspaper nearly all the way into the 1990s. Kukryniksy’s first political cartoon in Pravda appeared in September 1933 (“Distsiplina na stantsii Merefa”). It started a series on Soviet railway construction. Over a year later, Kukryniksy first concentrated on foreign politics, specifically on the murderous nature of Nazis (“Olitsetvorenie nezapiatnannoi fashistskoi sovesti”). During their career, they published over 1,300 cartoons in Pravda. Over one third had symbolic animals in them. ⁹ Pravda was the main outlet for Kukryniksy’s political cartoons, but they published elsewhere too.

During the war, nine artists published political cartoons in Pravda, altogether a little less than 190 political cartoons. The individual artist’s totals varied from one cartoon to Kukryniksy’s much higher total, corresponding to nearly three quarters of all the cartoons. The average number of cartoons published per war month is not very different in any of the years, apart from 1942, when there were considerably more cartoons in Pravda, possibly due to the changing war situation (figure 2). The year is not, however, distinctive with respect to the number of Kukryniksy’s animal cartoons, which were published approximately in the same average monthly quantity throughout the war. This seems symptomatic of how specific war events were not that significant for political cartoons.

In Kukryniksy’s work, animal symbolism was important. During the war years, slightly over a quarter of Kukryniksy’s Pravda political cartoons (36 images) showed the enemy in animal form. The share of animal cartoons of all Kukryniksy cartoons per war year varied between one fifth (1944) and nearly half (1941). To some extent, the trio’s animal symbolism was influenced by the older generation of Soviet political cartoonists. For example, Viktor Deni (1893–1946), Yuli Ganf (1898–1973), and Konstantin Rotov (1902–1952) used some animal symbolism in their early 1930s work in Pravda (Deni, “Litso besnuiushcheisia reaktsii”; Ganf; Rotov).

The primary material for this article consists of the Kukryniksy political cartoons featuring non-human animals, published in Pravda between 22 June 1941 and 9 May 1945. I have collected the material on microfilm at the National Library of Finland and done a control check-up on East View’s digitized Pravda archives. The quality of this article’s illustrations is dependent on the quality of the microfilms. I categorized Kukryniksy’s work into non-animal and animal cartoons and completed a thematic analysis of the animal cartoons, utilizing close reading. I also have considered the material within its historical and socio-cultural context, undertaking an analysis within the frames and constraints of the period studied.

Non-Human Animals in Propaganda Imagery

In Kukryniksy’s wartime cartoons, the animal is never a positive symbol. For example, many of the animals they used to describe the Axis—such as dogs, wolves, goats and pigs—symbolize stupidity in the Soviet-Russian cultural context (Pisiotis 146). Even later, Kukryniksy practically always reserved animal symbolism for depicting the enemy (see Kangas, Cartoon Fables 70–72). It was typical that the Axis nations, especially their leaders, were frequently portrayed in non-human animal form. Many animals were used to describe the enemy, varying from animals regarded as “wild” and “dangerous,” like wolves and tigers, to those regarded as “tame” and “useful,” like horses and dogs (table 1). Some of the animals also fall somewhere between such categories, like crows and rats, which are rarely dangerous but which often are regarded as unwanted pests.

Table 1. The animals as which enemies are depicted in Kukryniksy’s wartime political cartoons. The number after each of the countries’ names corresponds to in how many cartoons they are represented as the animal in question. The column on the right reports the number of cartoons in which the specific animal symbol is used.

Animal	Country	Number of Cartoons
Chicken	Germany (1)	1
Cow	Hungary (1), Italy (1), Romania (1), Switzerland (1)	2
Crow	Germany (1)	1
Dog	Finland (3), France (2), Germany (4), Hungary (2), Italy (2), Romania (1), Slovakia (1)	11
Goat	Finland (1), Hungary (1), Romania (1)	2
Gorilla	Germany (1)	1
Horse	Hungary (1)	1
Jackal	Germany (1)	1
Monkey	Germany (3)	3
Orangutan	Germany (1)	1
Parrot	Italy (1)	1
Pig	Germany (1)	1
Rabbit	Romania (1)	1
Rat	Germany (3), Norway (1)	4
Sheep	Germany (1)	1
Snake	Germany (1)	1
Tiger	Germany (2)	2
Wolf-like creature	Germany (5)	5

Representing enemies as non-human animals serves to negate inhibitions about killing the enemy, but also ridicules and belittles them, a common practice in political cartooning. Furthermore, such representation conveys an impression of the enemy as an uncivilized “beast” that must be stopped from harming the civilized world. The central aim, however, pertains not only to projecting animality onto the enemy, but also to attributing a given animal’s culturally significant symbolic qualities to the enemy.

Attaching culturally dependent attributes associated with non-human animals acts as a method for portraying the enemy’s inhumanity and demoting the enemy into the “lower” position of non-human animals. Consequently, it furthers the division of the world into “us” and “them,” good and evil (Baker 36). Hierarchically, even lower than animals are animal-human hybrids (Baker 108). Such hybrids, reminiscent of the “monsters of folklore,” belong to culturally recognizable imagery that evoke feelings of fear and uneasiness (Sax 271). Such binary divisions typical to propaganda further emphasize a black-and-white binary division into “us” and “them,” and consequently between the human and the animal worlds.

Within the symbolic representation system, animals do not represent themselves, but the human characteristics attached to them, which accordingly become stereotypical depictions of the characteristics in question (Simons 119). In the process, humans define their own humanity in contrast to the nature of non-human animals. Subsequently, the symbolic qualities transfer back to the humans, who are thus relocated outside the human realm and among the animals (Fudge 61). The repetition of animal symbolism retains it in the active cultural memory of the audience. Furthermore, it develops into condensed meanings, which expand upon examination into extensive interpretations (Steuter and Wills 69). In other words, Kukryniksy’s animal symbols provided a culturally dependent code that aided the audience to understand the significance of the images. For example, the image of the orangutan was connected to Tolstoy’s text, but it also evoked Darwinist ideas about Germans as subhuman, and thus as lesser than “us.”

Nazis as Uncivilized Subhumans

The title of the political cartoon about the orangutan and the samovar helps the audience to interpret that the question is about a soldier robbing homes: Bronirovannyi gromila [An armoured housebreaker]. ¹⁰ Furthermore, the items which the orangutan transports on his tank are pointedly domestic and many are connected to what are seen as feminine traits, pinpointing the uselessness of such items to an orangutan in a tank, or a soldier in war. Additionally, if the audience grasps the reference to Tolstoy, they understand that the fate of the greedy German soldier is closely connected to his absurd loot. Considering the Soviet reading programme in schools, it is likely that the audience would have been familiar with their Tolstoy, Gogol, and other Russian language classics (see Malinovskaya 2020). In case they were not, Lebedev-Kumach’s poem under the image nudges the readers towards a correct interpretation. After a list of items stolen by the orangutan and the description of the stench originating in the housebreaker, the final line of the poem reveals the orangutan’s identity: Eto-gitlerovskii tank [This is a Hitlerite tank].

This is a rather typical depiction of the German enemy in the beginning of the war. The purpose of such imagery was to make the enemy and their villainous nature known. The images showed the Germans as brutal killers capable of committing the worst atrocities and, thus, as an imminent threat to the nation. However, they simultaneously portrayed the enemy as a group of ridiculous cowards, easily defeatable by the mighty Soviet Union. The Hitlerite orangutan is a prime example—he is too much of a coward to face the Soviet troops. Instead, he breaks into houses in Moscow and steals various household items and clothing, as well as some food, for example, spoons, forks, clocks, ladies’ hats, bras, garters, pantaloons, stockings, chocolate and sausage. Interestingly, the orangutan steals forks and spoons, but no knives, the only utensil that could be thought of as being useful to a soldier.

The list of stolen items is intended to invoke the utter absurdity of the soldier’s actions. With the reference to women’s clothing, especially that to underwear, the cartoon questions the masculinity and strength of the enemy, but simultaneously pinpoints the threat which the enemy poses to women, without making a visual reference to the atrocities committed against women in wartime. Relatively few of Kukryniksy’s cartoons show such a threat directly. In such cartoons, the enemy is shown in the actual process of killing children, looting for clothing and shoes among the dead bodies of children and young people, escaping from a scene of killing defenceless people, or carrying off young maidens (Kukryniksy, “‘Protiv molodtsa—sam ovtsa’,” “Unichtozhitʹ nemetskoe chudovishche!,” 29 April 1942). The emphasis is on killing civilians and committing atrocities.

The depiction of an enemy as a threat to all civilization and the concurrent declaration that such a threat needs to be exterminated is typical for war propaganda (see Luostarinen 33). Showing the enemy in animal form strengthens the idea of a less civilized and, from a Darwinist point of view, less evolved being. Drawing the enemy in a “subhuman” form, i.e., as a primate, emphasizes the less evolved and more primitive nature of the enemy. Indeed, depicting an enemy in the form of a primate is an old tradition in wartime visual propaganda (Baker 107–11). Especially Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945), Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, took the form of a primate in the Soviet propaganda of the “Great Patriotic War.” This creature receives the name gebbel’z’iana, an amalgamation of Goebbels’s name transliterated into Russian, Gebbel’s, and the Russian word obez’iana [monkey] (Weiss 455). Such a wordplay entwines the monkey-ness into the very being of Goebbels.

Because of the cultural conception of an evolutionary hierarchy, portraying the Nazis as primates creates a semblance of them as lesser than humans. However, the purity of the animal form is often questioned. The orangutan, for example, appears fully animal, but the context reveals him to be a human-orangutan hybrid and, thus, an even lesser being than a full orangutan. The orangutan’s form is fully animal, but his actions are those of a human, revealing his hybridity. In another Kukryniksy cartoon, published 2 July 1942, a Hitler-like monkey appears to be in a monkey suit instead of being a real monkey (figure 3, “Zhivotnyi strakh”). He wears a tie and a collared shirt, as well as an Iron Cross on his chest. Himmler, in turn, sitting next to Hitler and holding onto his Iron Cross with his tail, seems more animal-like—only his head appears as that of a human. The most monkey-like of the cartoon’s monkeys is a generic nameless Nazi soldier, whose only more human-like actions are wearing a military hat, bearing an armband with a swastika, and shooting with a pistol. Thus, Hitler, and Himmler to some extent, appear as chimeras, mixes of monkey and human, two species close to each other, possibly to evoke in the audience unsettling thoughts about humans procreating with monkeys. Consequently, as hybrids, they occupy a “lower” position in an implicit hierarchy than monkeys in general.

The cartoonists further emphasize the distinction between these monkeys and humans with the placement of the caricatured Hitler and Himmler monkeys in front of a cage full of tormented humans, drawn more naturalistically. The soldier monkey shoots at the humans with a pistol. Blood flows out of the cage. Hitler and Himmler, as onlookers to the events, hold a portrait of a third monkey, who is in full military uniform and looks less unkempt than Hitler and Himmler, possibly as a prediction of Nazi Germany’s previous might drawing closer to its end. The monkey in the portrait is Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942), a high-ranked SS and police official, who was assassinated by a team of Czech and Slovak agents on 27 May 1942. The political cartoon is Kukryniksy’s portrayal of the rather excessive Nazi retaliation for the event. The caption of the cartoon is essential for the full interpretation of the cartoon. It explains that, following the assassination, Hitler ordered two Czech villages to be destroyed, with the people either to be executed or taken to concentration camps.

The Nazi monkeys attempt to suppress the human world under their control. In opposition to this, Kukryniksy imply that the “natural” place for monkeys among human civilization would be behind the bars in a zoo. Under the cartoon, a short dialogue takes place between the worried-looking Hitler and the rather contentedly smiling Himmler: Unichtozh’ ikh skorei, inache oni unichtozhat nas! [Hurry up and destroy them, or they’ll destroy us!] These utterances frame the situation as one that the monkeys are not completely in charge of. The monkeys, afraid of the harm that civilians may cause them, have succumbed to primitive instincts, and have started killing uncontrollably. Thus, Soviet propaganda relates to the public a message of a world that needs to be saved from these uncivilized, murderous beasts, and turned right again (see also Kukryniksy, “‘Okruzhenie’,” “Ubiitsa po sovmestitelʹstvu”). It serves as much as a warning about the German leaders’ nature, as a call to arms, to protect not only the fatherland, but also the entire world and human civilization. Furthermore, it promises to the audience the existence of resistance and the feasibility of defeating the Nazis.

The portrayals of less evolved creatures attempting to take over the world, turning the world’s normal state of being topsy-turvy, strongly resonates with the traditional Russian folkloristic theme of an upside-down world. The Russian carnival tradition turns fools into kings and inverts norms for the sake of parody (Gasperetti 167–68). The portrayal of a world turned upside-down was a component of the Russian lubok tradition too (Tarasov 370–71). Similarly, Kukryniksy show humans and animals switching places, being in positions that traditionally are seen as “belonging” to the other (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 192). Thus, Kukryniksy employ cultural memory and follow Russian visual traditions with their imagery. Such inversions in Kukryniksy’s work emphasize the notion of a world gone crazy and taking leave of all the sense that it previously has made. Furthermore, they make political cartoons function according to the practices of Socialist Realism in implying the Soviets to be the ideal opposite of the enemy. Moreover, the cartoons pinpoint a possible future that will materialize if the audience does not act.

The Hardships Endured by the Nazis

A wolf-like creature’s head is stuck in a giant mousetrap and a sword pins his tail to the ground in a Kukryniksy political cartoon published on 11 June 1944 (figure 4, “I nos ne vytashchil, i khvost uviaz…”).  The animal is Hitler, representing the whole of Nazi Germany. He appears, once again, as a chimera. This time his body is wolf-like, and his head (with large front teeth and an elongated snout for a nose) is rat-like, but his ears, eyes and facial hair are a human’s. Depicting the enemy in a wolf-like form was rather typical for Kukryniksy (e.g., “Dobitʹ nemetskogo zveria v ego sobstvennoi berloge!,” “Giena i shakal,” 11 August 1944). Indeed, the depiction of the Nazis as “wild” canine animals was more common in Soviet propaganda cartoons than their depiction as domestic dogs. The latter were mainly reserved for the depiction of Germany’s allies. As with the monkeys, the wild canine animal seems to be afraid of the Soviet Union and the Allies but also presents a threat—even if entrapped—to the civilized world.

That Hitler is stuck in a mouse trap emphasizes his rodent-ness. With his claws, he desperately holds onto a boot (labelled “Italy”) being dragged away by pincers. Hitler’s attributes, that became iconic in Kukryniksy’s and other Soviet artists’ images and established in visual cultural memory, reveal the identity of the animal: moustache, nose, and hair. These visual attributes serve as shorthand for character recognition. Italy, in turn, is labelled by shape and, for clarification, textually by name. The mousetrap has the Soviet red star on it, and the sword is adorned with the flags of the UK and the USA. Trapped by the Allies, the enemy is fixed in a passive position. This cartoon does make references to the general war situation as well as a prediction of the imminent demise of the enemy. Hitler’s position is symptomatic of the change in the depiction of the enemy from active into passive after the Soviet Union managed to halt the German advances on the Eastern front in 1942: the threatening creature turned into a pathetic loser (see also, Kukryniksy, “Giena i shakal,” 5 August 1943).

Intertextual references in visual and verbal form that resonate with the audience’s cultural memory emphasize the intended meaning of the image. In particular, the title of the cartoon, I nos ne vytashchil, i khvost uviaz… [Didn’t free his nose, and tail got stuck too…], acts as a pun on the Russian saying: nos vytashchit—khvost uviazit, khvost vytashchit—nos uviazit [Frees the nose—the tail gets stuck, frees the tail—the nose gets stuck], which is akin to the English-language phrases “between the devil and the deep blue sea” and “out of the frying pan, into the fire.” Here, Kukryniksy puts Hitler in a mousetrap, where he has no choice over whether his head or tail is stuck, unlike the person in the saying. Already the original proverb contains the idea that a solution to a problem may land one into another problem. However, Kukryniksy make the situation even direr in that their Hitler is stuck from both ends, unable to extricate either one. Such cultural references and their reworkings, significant in Kukryniksy’s political cartoons, convey interpretational cues. The references function as interpretative layers that, when peeled off, reveal further layers of meaning. The slightly changed proverb guarantees that the public understands that Hitler is between two war fronts, that the long-awaited Western front has finally opened, and that Hitler is now unable to escape or succeed in any of his plans—he is essentially defeated.

As seen, Kukryniksy use many linguistic devices and puns to support the interpretation process of their cartoons and to pinpoint the meaning of the animal symbolism in them. Aside from the use of metaphors or (altered) proverbs, they also manipulate single words. Like in the example of gebbel’zyana, discussed above, animal names are changed to suit the propagandist’s purposes, often amalgamating the animal’s name with an enemy’s name. Another example of such use is kryslingi—a combination of the animal name krysa [rat] and the Norwegian surname Quisling, with the appropriate Russian nominative plural ending –i to refer to a group of people (see Kukryniksy, “Kryslingi s tonushchego korablia”). The reference is not a direct one to the Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling (1887–1945), but to the meaning attached to his name for his collaboration with Nazi Germany: a traitor, a collaborator, i.e., a quisling. Thus, sometimes the use of a certain animal symbol emanates from the phonetical closeness of a common and a proper noun, that enables their amalgamation into a new word with several interpretative layers.

At other times, the animal symbol in use originates in something carrying the animal’s name. For example, when Hitler rides on a tiger or is dressed as a tiger, it refers to the German Tiger tanks, which were—before their failure in actual battles—regarded as superior. Kukryniksy ridiculed such failings by showing tigers running away beaten or being trapped (Kukryniksy, “‘Planomernoe’ otstuplenie,” “Pod Orlom auknulosʹ, v Rime otkliknulosʹ”). Tigers traditionally have symbolic values signifying strength and fearsomeness. Kukryniksy, however, turn the values upside down, and simultaneously the strong and fearsome tiger into a fearful weakling. In Kukryniksy’s oeuvre, such inversions of symbolic qualities became a common device of ridicule (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 191). In general, in propaganda usage, when referring to an enemy with a positively charged symbol, it is necessary to invert the positive values (Steuter and Wills 111). Thus, Kukryniksy turn the tiger into an enfeebled and belittled being—the hunter has become the hunted, in the manner of the carnivalesque upside-down world.

Usually, such inversions are not necessary, because typically the animal symbols in enemy depiction are loaded negatively. For example, in a Christian context, snakes and dragons traditionally have negative symbolic connotations referring to the devil and St. George’s dragon. The amount of snakes and dragons is noticeable in Russian and Soviet pre–World War II propaganda enemy depictions (Bonnell 70). However, in Kukryniksy’s wartime political cartoons, only one image has a snake—Hitler as a snake cut in two—and none have dragons (see Kukryniksy, “Ob’edinënnyi udar”). Perhaps this indicates the eradication of the Christian tradition to some extent in Soviet visual language, even if largely based on previous traditions and symbolic systems.

Apart from snakes and dragons, also crows and ravens are seen in Russian folklore as signs of bad luck. At times, such birds act as an inversion of the national animals of countries with “valiant” birds, like eagles, as their national animals. For example, the US eagle is often depicted as a vulture (Steuter and Wills 111). Kukryniksy too used such depictions of the USA, when the countries’ relationship was belligerent (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 177–78). Interestingly, even though the eagle is the national animal of Germany, Kukryniksy’s wartime cartoons have many birds as references to the Nazis. In a cartoon, published on 19 January 1945, the German eagle is shown as a miserable crow, perhaps as an inversion of the eagle (figure 5, “Varshavskii udar”). In a manner reminiscent of the lubok tradition, the cartoon consists of two parts—a before and after panel, which is recurrent in Soviet visual propaganda. In their later work, Kukryniksy extensively used twofold images in which the before was parallelled with “lies,” i.e., a claim made by the enemy, and the after with the “truth,” i.e., the reality according to the cartoonists (see Kangas, Cartoon Fables 190). Such semblances of the truth/lies division are visible already in Kukryniksy’s wartime imagery.

In the before panel of the 1945 cartoon, two crows sit on a chain that connects a swastika to an arm labelled “Warsaw.” In the after panel, swords carrying Polish and Soviet insignia cut the chain, and the birds fall to the ground. The birds’ physiognomic features pinpoint the crows as Hitler and his propaganda minister Goebbels, who, has his mouth wide open as a sign of the lies he keeps spewing. Accompanying the cartoon is a poem by the Soviet writer, poet, and translator Samuil Marshak (1887–1964), who collaborated to a significant degree with the Kukryniksy trio, sometimes even with the signature Marshkukryniksy (see, e.g., Marshkukryniksy). The poem describes how the crows have all the time been yelling lies about Warsaw being theirs, never to be captured by others, but the time has come, and the united Soviet and Polish armies together have freed Warsaw from the crows.

Being smaller and of a different form, as well as having a dissimilar posture to the Hitler crow, Goebbels could also be some other bird, like a duck, or a crow-duck hybrid. A duck permits a mental connection to be made with the Russian word utka which not only means “duck” but also “exaggerated lies.” Thus, this appears as a part of the beginning of a longer tradition in the formation of Kukryniksy’s propaganda duck. The duck was significant in Kukryniksy’s later political cartoons (Kangas, Cartoon Fables 108). The question about the species and possible hybridity of the birds can be extended also to the Hitler bird. He looks like a crow, but has a tail that resembles the plucked tail of a peacock, which functions as an intertextual reference to the Russian expression vorona v pavlin’ikh per’iakh, which means that someone wishes to appear as something else than what they are. Additionally, it contains an intertextual reference to Deni’s earlier Pravda cartoon published on 11 November 1941, in which Hitler is shown as an imperial crow attempting to appear as a National Socialist peacock with higher values (“Vorona v pavlinʹikh perʹiakh”). As such, Kukryniksy’s image also depicts the demise of the once boastful bird. That is, the Hitler-crow attempts to create an image of himself as victorious. The Soviet cartoonist trio, however, shows the audience the “truth,” what should be seen behind the boastful words of the cartoon Hitler and Goebbels as well as their defeat at the hands of the Red Army.

Axis in the Form of Pets and Cattle

While Nazi Germany was mostly depicted in the form of “wild” animals, other Axis countries were predominantly shown as domesticated animals, as Hitler’s pets or cattle. Most typically, Kukryniksy referred to the relations between Axis countries with symbols originating from an interpretation of an animal’s supposed characteristics or utilitarian use: an obeying dog, a stubborn goat, a burden-carrying horse, or a dairy cow (see, e.g., “Dokatilsia… ” “Prodazhnie ishcheiki Lavalʹ–Petеn,” “Upriamaia  ‘druzhba’,” 13 January 1945). In Kukryniksy’s cartoon published on 14 August 1941 a human-formed Hitler, surrounded by seven dogs, sits at a table gnawing on a bone in a dog-like manner (figure 6, “Fashiststkaia psarnia”). Five of the dogs are either labelled or recognisable as the leaders of Axis countries: President of the Slovak Republic Jozef Tiso (1887–1947), Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy (1868–1957), Prime Minister of Italy Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), Prime Minister and Conducător of Romania Ion Antonescu (1882–1946), and Commander in Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867–1951). If the facial features of the dogs are not enough to give away their identity, Marshak’s poem underneath the image aids the interpretation process by mentioning Mussolini, Antonescu, and Mannerheim by name. The two last ones are not labelled in the image itself.

In the Fascist kennel, the dogs are either drooling and begging or fetching objects for Hitler, as Marshak writes Esli Gitler palku brosit, / Govoria: “apport!”—/ Mannergeim eë prinosit, / Radosten i gord [If Hitler throws a stick, / Saying “bring!” /—Mannerheim brings it / Joyful and proud]. Marshak depicts Antonescu in a similar vein as Mannerheim. Mussolini gets a description as tolst i neukliuzh [fat and clumsy], lying on the floor as per Hitler’s command. In the light of Marshak’s words and the visual image of the dogs, some of the dogs act more in accordance with their own will than the others. Tiso and Horthy are fastened to Hitler’s wrist with leashes, and Mussolini with a chain, perhaps referring to a more significant role in the war or a tighter connection with Nazi Germany. The rest of the dogs run freely but seem ready and willing to serve their master at the table.

References to countries allied with Germany as doing Hitler’s bidding are typical to Kukryniksy’s political cartoons (see, e.g., “Fashistskaia dzhaz-banda,” “Prodazhnie ishcheiki Lavalʹ–Petеn,” “Razgovor pod novyi god mezhdu psami dvukh porod,” “Sobachʹia zhiznʹ” 4 September 1943, “Vysluzhili… ”). Dog symbolism is mostly reserved for the depiction of the other Axis countries, but occasionally also Hitler’s German subordinates are shown as dogs (see, e.g., Kukryniksy, “Gebbelʹsova duga,” “Sobachʹia zhiznʹ” 26 May 1942). Kukryniksy employ the master-and-his-dog analogy to depict the power relations between the Axis countries as well as within Germany.

Another ample source for animal symbolism was constituted by Ivan Krylov’s fables, which are a relevant part of the Russian cultural memory and thus resonate with the audience. In Krylov’s fable “Dogs’ friendship,” two dogs start fighting over a bone and they cannot be separated except by throwing water onto them (43–45). In Kukryniksy’s version, the dogs keep fighting even when water is thrown onto them (“Beshenaia druzhba”). Thus, Kukryniksy turn the story into an impasse similarly to how they twist proverbs to recount situations with no escape from them. Here they affect perceptions by altering cultural elements familiar to the audience. So, Soviet propaganda portrays the events in a way which turns the Axis into unfit allies, thus undermining the credibility of the Axis as an alliance and a threat. The depiction of Germany’s allies as Hitler’s pets or cattle, with little or no agency of their own, further erodes the enemy’s credibility, but also assigns the main blame onto the Nazis.

Apart from dog symbolism, Kukryniksy use cow symbolism to depict the relationship between Hitler and his allies. In Kukryniksy’s cartoon published 15 September 1942, a fat Hitler sucks milk straight from the udder of a very skinny cow labelled Italy, while booting Mussolini away from the cow (figure 7, “Soiuz Gitlera s Italiei . . . i tak dalee”). The image declares that Hitler takes the place of a calf and robs what he can from the mother cow. Behind the cow stand two more cows, one of them a Hungarian Grey recognisable from his horns, and a goat. Each of them has a label to ease identification: Romania, Hungary, Finland. The desperate looking leaders of these countries—apart from Horthy, who is missing from the image—gloomily observe how Hitler exploits the cows. The exploitation has gone on for so long that the animals are starved to a point at which their ribs are showing.

The image was published about a year after the image of Hitler’s allies as dogs, and has somewhat different connotations. In 1941, the Axis countries appear as more willing supporters of Hitler, but here they are unhappy, exploited underlings. However, both cartoons imply that Germany takes advantage of its allies without giving anything back. The dogs try to get bones from their master, who chooses to have all the bones himself, and Hitler starves the cows by taking everything himself. Hitler provides the animals with no shelter or food but causes them to starve and suffer. Interestingly, milking a cow acts here as a symbol for exploitation, even though people only seldom think of their use of dairy as exploitation. Especially in an agricultural country like the Soviet Union in the 1940s, the idea of condemning the exploitation of animals in dairy farming would likely have appeared as a strange notion.

Kukryniksy used domesticated animals in the depiction of the Nazis as well, albeit only seldom. For example, Kukryniksy show Hitler, Himmler and Göring as a rooster and two chicken playing on the Russian expression slepaia kuritsa [blind chicken], which means a short-sighted person (“Kurinaia slepota”). The symbolic connotation that transfers the attribute of short-sightedness to Hitler originates in an idiomatic expression. The cartoon’s before-and-after scenario—Hitler’s plans to invade England in 1940 and his fear of a British invasion in 1943—clarifies the nature of Germany’s implied short-sightedness. Another example of Nazis as domesticated animals arises from a literary reference, thus creating in the audience feelings of recognition and success in the interpretation of specific layers of the political cartoon. The German pigs destroying the museum of the author of Ukrainian origin, Mykola Hohol (1809–1852), better known by his Russianized name Nikolai Gogol, get their symbolic value from the author’s short story, Sorochintsi Fair (see Kukryniksy, “Fashizvergi v Sorochintsakh”). In the story, the devil is associated with the pig. The audience of the cartoons would have been able to parse this reference to the Russian-language literary canon. However, for clarity’s sake, the cartoon’s reference has been completed with a quote from the said story, making sure that even the culturally less literate members of the audience will be able to interpret the correct meaning of the cartoon: the Nazi pigs are on par with the devil.

A Long Tradition of Enemies

Kukryniksy used different animals to convey various meanings in their cartoons. While depictions of Germans as wild animals and primates informed the audience about the nature and characteristics of the main enemy, the uncivilized murderous beast, domesticated animals representing the other Axis nations described the nature of Germany’s allies as obedient fools. The origins of the animal symbolism were rooted in two sources with culturally dependent significance: one more general and one more culturally specific. On one hand, animals were frequently used in wartime cartoons everywhere. Such cultural significance may be wide-ranging and prevalent in several cultures, such as the idea of a monkey being less evolved than a human. On the other hand, occasionally, like in the case of animal symbolism originating in literature, the symbolism is only meaningful to an audience that has the necessary cultural literacy. Kukryniksy’s political cartoons relied on multi-layered symbolism based on both general and more specific elements and relying on visual elements as well as textual meaning-making and their interplay. Thus, their work could be used in various contexts, ranging from being spread on the home front to being dropped down from an airplane behind enemy lines.

With their iconic images of the war, Kukryniksy consolidated a characterisation of the enemy for the audience. Simultaneously, with the use of symbolism originating in cultural memory, they took part in the remediation of visual culture, thus strengthening and moulding certain elements within it. For example, in the portrayal of an enemy as a specific animal, the animal’s extant symbolic qualities were deployed, but simultaneously Kukryniksy created new nuances, which may have in turn seeped into cultural ideas of the animal. Furthermore, the use of animal symbolism in the depiction of the world in black-and-white terms intensifies the perceptions of certain species as negative and harmful. It is also noteworthy that the animals used as symbols in war propaganda may end up absorbing some of the negative traits of the enemy.

Kukryniksy established their use of animal symbolism during the period from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s (see also Kangas, “Mercenary Mannerheims”). In their cartoons drawn after the war, it is visible how the practice has taken shape over the preceding decade. For example, in 1949–1950, during the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Kukryniksy applied to their depictions of the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) animal symbolism akin to what they used in wartime (see Kangas, “Tito Pravdan pilapiirroksissa” 7). Subsequently, the same animals, symbolic connotations and ideas used during the war are repeated in Kukryniksy’s political cartoons published during the Cold War. ¹¹ The wartime idea of the enemy became the foundation on which Kukryniksy constructed the enemy of the Cold War; the enemy was a fascist and a Nazi, no matter what their country of origin or political leanings were. Thus, within their body of work, Kukryniksy developed their own visual language on top of Russian and Soviet visual traditions. Simultaneously, their prolific output in images guaranteed that their work influenced the Soviet and post-Soviet visual traditions and propaganda rhetoric in turn.

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Weiss, Daniel. “Tiere in der Sowjetpropaganda: Verbale und graphische Stereotypen.” Slavistische Linguistik 2004/2005. Referate des XXX. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Klagenfurt, 13.–17. September 2004 und Referate des XXXI. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Klagenfurt, 19.–23. September 2005, edited by Tilman Berger et al., Verlag Otto Sagner 2006, pp. 423–65.

Wolfe, Thomas C. Governing Soviet Journalism: The Press and the Socialist Person after Stalin. Indiana University Press, 2005.

Yefimov, Boris. A true Aryan should be: tall (Goebbels), muscular and slim (Goering), blonde (Hitler). 1941. Brown Digital Repository, Views and Re–Views, https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:89315/. Accessed 18 June 2024.

——. “Berlinskaia razboinichʹia banda.” Pravda, 18 July 1941, p. 4.

——. Na moi vzgliad… Iskusstvo, 1987.

Zegers, Peter. Windows on the War: Soviet TASS Posters at Home and Abroad, 1941–1945. Art Institute of Chicago, 2011.

Footnotes

1. I use the Library of Congress transliteration system (2012 version) of Russian Cyrillic text to Latin text, except with names, when they have a conventional form that is used, e.g. Tolstoy instead of Tolstoi and Gogol instead of Gogolʹ. However, for the sake of reader friendliness, I omit the diacritics usually used in the Library of Congress system.↺
2. For more treatises on the use of animal symbolism in conflicts, see, e.g., Baker; Bonnell; Kangas, Cartoon Fables, “Mercenary Mannerheims,” “Tito Pravdan pilapiirroksissa”; Steuter and Wills; Weiss.↺
3. A lubok is a traditional Russian woodblock print that combines image and text in the telling of a story. Sometimes they consisted of more than one image—thus forming a narrative, somewhat akin to what is done in comics. They often depict scenes from folktales and literature, but they may also contain religious imagery. They were popular from the late 17th century to the early 20th century, when the printing press became more prevalent in producing visual material. They have also been used as war propaganda (see, e.g., Norris; Parppei).↺
4. TASS windows are stencil posters produced, e.g., during World War II. Their predecessors were the ROSTA windows of the Russian Civil War. They were called windows, because they were usually displayed in windows. They followed the lubok tradition and can also be seen as a part of the development of Russian comics. For more on TASS windows, see, e.g., Zegers.↺
5. Sometimes Yefimov’s surname is transliterated as Efimov.↺
6. One version is accessible at Brown University Library’s digital repository (Yefimov, A true Aryan should be).↺
7. Many of Kukryniksy’s images were reproduced in various media, e.g., a black-and-white version in Pravda and a coloured version as a TASS window. TASS window No. 472 “‘Protiv molodtsa—sam ovtsa’,” from 16 May 1942, corresponds with a political cartoon published 3 May 1942. No. 778, “Pod Orlom auknulos’, v Rime otkliknulos’’’, from 2 August 1943, corresponds with a cartoon from 28 July 1943 (for lists of TASS windows published, see Morozov). In view of the publication dates, it seems that the political cartoons acted as a basis and inspiration for the TASS windows.↺
8. E.g., Viktor Koretsky’s “Nashi sily neischislimy” (1941), Nikolai Zhukov’s “Bei nasmert’!” (1942), and Leonid Golovanov’s “Doidëm do Berlina!” (1944).↺
9. For the years 1945–1990, see Kangas, Cartoon Fables 201.↺
10. All the translations are the author’s own unless otherwise stated.↺
11. For more on this, see Kangas, Cartoon Fables, “The Fool of the Animals,” “The Law of the Wolf,” “Doing Their Master’s Bidding.”↺