Tyrants and Cartoons

by Vladimir Kazanevsky
Kiev, Ukraine

There have been many tyrants, great and small, in the world's history, and the art of caricature has accompanied them throughout time. The relationship between tyrants and caricaturists has been a complicated one. Overtly or covertly, caricaturists have hated tyrants because the mind of the cartoonist takes a critical attitude toward reality. Criticism of tyranny exists only when there is a clear reference point for criticism--a vital, humane position--and such a reference point is always opposed to tyranny. Even conformists, the so-called "pocket" caricaturists, secretly did not love the tyrants in whose pockets they found themselves. And tyrants, in turn, have always hated cartoonists, even their "pocket" cartoonists. At any moment their pets can turn against them.

The relations of tyrants and cartoonists have been about the same in all times. The ideal subjects for caricaturists have been the great tyrants, such as Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin. An analysis of the cartoons featuring great tyrants through history shows that tyrants have maintained an army of "pocket" cartoonists to eulogize them. From time to time, tyrants have used the witty criticism of cartoonists to work against their enemies, internal and external. The tyrants have supported their "pocket" cartoonists, but they have also kept them in fear. There have always been prisons and concentration camps waiting for them. The relationship of tyrants and their "pocket" cartoonists has always been like that between dogs and their cruel masters.

The best-known cartoons, however, have always been those that criticized great tyrants. Despots have tried to destroy the home-bred cartoonists who criticized their tyranny. For this purpose there has always been an army of well-trained secret police. Foreign cartoonists, whom the tyrants could not punish, they hated. Napoleon, for example, sent notes to the government of England requesting the suppression of cartoonists who criticized him, equating them with murderers. Hitler threatened to hang some Soviet cartoonists after taking Moscow. There have been many cases of tyrants' hostility to cartoonists.

The attitude of liberal cartoonists to tyrants is not so ambiguous. Caricaturists have criticized the character of tyrants and their inhumane policies. Indeed, cartoonists have always had a pathological attraction to tyrants, and the greater the tyrant, the greater the attraction. Tyranny is the best of all subjects for satire, and tyrants personify that evil. Cartoonists are impelled to do battle with evil as Don Quixote was impelled to do battle with his Giant.

The history of caricature has deep roots. As far back as the 12th century B.C., Ramses III was depicted as a fierce lion, and cartoonists have caricatured tyrants ever since, on home walls and household utensils as well as in books, magazines, and newspapers. The modern political cartoon evolved in the 18th century and had its first great flowering in the nineteenth thanks to Napoleon, a larger-than-life figure to whom no one was indifferent. He had his devotees as well as his opponents, but the cartoonists of England, Russia, Germany, Spain, and the United States generally declared satirical war on him, and they were the victors in that war. Napoleon replied to criticism with primitive slander rather than by satire.

The twentieth century was a great era for tyrants, great and small. Tyranny flourished throughout Europe, Asia, and South and Central America, and that fact may account for the important development of cartooning in that century. It is interesting to note that the two great tyrants, Hitler and Stalin, both surrounded themselves with large groups of "pocket" cartoonists who praised them extravagantly. When Hitler was still not an enemy of Stalin, though not a friend, Soviet cartoonists gave him only faint praise or ignored him, but when he attacked Russia, Stalin's cartoonists criticized him ferociously. On posters, leaflets, newspapers, and journals thousands of cartoons represented Hitler as a monster and Stalin as a hero. After Stalin's death, the same cartoonists criticized their former leader ruthlessly.

Similarly, German cartoonists hated Hitler. Before the Fuehrer reached the status of a great tyrant, cartoonists criticized him mercilessly. Once he took office, he destroyed the cartoonists who had attacked him or exiled them from Germany. Those lucky enough to escape continued to criticize Hitler from abroad.

Similar relations between tyrants and cartoonists have existed in other countries. Cartoonists were like wasps buzzing around them. Some could be tamed and turned against the tyrants' enemies; others, free spirits or tamed by the opposition, try to sting the tyrants.

Eventually all tyrants fall, and their empires are destroyed. The new governments are allowed to speak the truth about the fallen tyranny. Then all cartoonists, conformists and liberals, are unanimous. Often the same imagery is employed; for example, after the fall of the communist tyrannies in Eastern Europe, hundreds of cartoons representing overthrown monuments appeared.

The relationship of democratic governments and cartoonists is different. Democratic leaders are not afraid of cartoonists and indeed often love the free-thinking variety and welcome caricatures of themselves. Such cartoons are free advertising and may add to the leaders' popularity, because between a democratic leader and his people there is no conflict. American presidents of the last decades, for example, often gave independent minded cartoonists a warm welcome in the White House.

Between tyrants and cartoonists there has always been a strong link. By a leader's attitude toward cartoons it is possible to measure the degree of his tyranny.