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The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary
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Abstract: Bellum Nostrum Contra Omnes. Ethnic Stereotypes in Press Cartoons at the End of the 19th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century. In the second half of the 19th century, allover Europe satirical journals started to popularize visual stereotypes with ethnical reference. Such products of the cartoonist were not only simply hilarious graphic solutions with the sole purpose to amuse, but also intentionally depreciative expressions of the Others. In the age of nationalism, pictorial stereotypes were one way to slander the image of one’s neighboring countries and to bring forth, to the public, their so often perilous character to the nation. For instance, Austro-Hungarian journals were portraying the Serbians constantly in a negative way, regarding them as savage bloody terrorists. And the perpetual grudge between Frenchmen and German assured a long-time visual antipropaganda to the others, by means of cartoons, from the both sides. Each ones were perceived by the others as being aggressive and dangerous at all time. How did the the satirical newspapers from Romania imagine our neighbors in the last decades of the century and at the beginning of the 20st century? With no precise regularity, all proximate countries were endowed with mischievous qualities. The Russians were seen as self-proclaimed civilized people but who were in fact primitive and beastly individuals. Their symbol was the bear, which appeared often in caricatures. Their own purpose regarding Romania was to steel as much as possible from it. Bad Christians were also considered the Greeks, which were accused mainly for their use of violence towards the Aromanians in Macedonia. The Turks were always ugly skinny persons trying desperately to regain their lost power in the region. Along came the backwards Bulgarians, waiting in the shadow of the great powers to nibble something from the booty. The Hungarians, portrayed as weakling moustached magnates, were disparaged due to the Transylvanian problem. Two other powers which were pointed out for their intrusion in Romanian affairs were Austro-Hungary and Germany. Especially the last one was considered truculent because of its ambition to conquer the world, a stereotype which in fact was present in the European press and literature too. The worse visions of the Others were to be fabricated though in wartime. Where military conflicts were on their way or in full progress, calumnious images were displayed continuously on the pages of the journals. Cartoons were now used in a clearly propagandistic way, boasting about the good qualities of one’s nation and army and showing the incapability and the wrongdoings of the opponent states. Bad images of the Others are remanent, persisting sometimes when the conflict is long over. They belong to a general consciousness which needs to distinguish perpetually the other nations and keep them at distance. |
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