Paper short abstract:

In our paper we will look at anti-colonial and anti-apartheid cartoons from Krokodil (Crocodile), the most popular satirical magazine in the USSR, and trace how these changed over time, from the active 1960s, when Africa became the main object of attention for the USSR, to the end of the 1980s.

Paper long abstract:

From the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s, when the USSR systematically provided considerable material support to the African national liberation movements, the narrative of internationalism and solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the Third World re-emerged and developed in Soviet society. As various studies have shown, ordinary Soviet citizens started to have more everyday contacts with Africans, either with students or with guests of the cultural and youth festivals held across the country. Despite rather limited contacts, Soviet people were well aware of events taking place on the African continent due to the Soviet media’s active news agenda. The satirical magazine Krokodil played a major role in these dynamics, contributing to the Soviets’ understanding of anti-colonial struggles. Being one of the most popular printed publications of the time, with a circulation of 6.5 million copies, its issues reached the most remote corners of the USSR. While Krokodil carried a progressive message by disseminating visual images of the struggle of the oppressed and denouncing imperialism and the abuses of the apartheid regime, its images were not totally devoid of orientalist stereotypes and political clichés. The paper reflects on the aesthetic, cultural and political meanings of the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid drawings published in numerous issues of Krokodil and explores the limitations of this visual material given its production in the context of global Cold War narratives and their shaping by the views and imaginaries of the Soviet cartoonists themselves.