Mikhalenko N.V. Images of peasants in the cheap popular prints of the World War I // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 70-76.

EDN: IEGIBS

Annotation

Propaganda cheap popular prints of the World War I were designed to raise the patriotic spirit of the defenders of the Fatherland, to praise the ingenuity, bravery and resourcefulness of both soldiers and people in the rear, to create an image of the weak and harmless enemy. One of the symbols of the people’s war in both military pictures of the 19th century and in popular prints of the 20th century was the peasant, most often in a red shirt, fighting an enemy with agricultural implements or with bare hands. The bravura signature and visual means of popular prints — the coloristic and dynamic juxtaposition of the hero and enemies, the contrast in size of figures — emphasized the power and strength of the peasant. The image of the peasant woman in a sarafan at war was intended to show the unity of the people fighting the enemy and to emphasize the strong character of the Russian woman. Popular prints of the World War I took many images and plot moves from the pictures of the Patriotic War of 1812; since in the early 20th century, in the artistic environment, interest in folklore and folk art was very high, satirical popular prints became a kind of synthetic genre that absorbed traditional content in new verbal and visual forms.

Keywords

Peasants, World War I, Patriotic War of 1812, collection of D. A. Rovinsky, folk pictures, “Today’s Lubok”, V. V. Mayakovsky, K. S. Malevich.

About the author

Natalia V. Mikhalenko, PhD (Philology), Senior Researcher, А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Povarskaya St., 25a, Moscow, 121069, Russia.
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