Soldados do traço: cartuns contra o nazifascismo (Conexões transnacionais, 1922-1945)

Abstract

Humor, making people laugh, the comical go hand in hand with criticism and reflection.

It was what anti-fascist cartoonists (“soldiers of art”) scribbled, using pencil to combat Nazi- fascism (1922-1945), highlighting caricature as a political act.

Our thesis studied the flow and transnational circulation of ideas-images and combat

caricatures through cartoons, motifs and themes disseminated by the mainstream press, the anti- fascist press, news agencies and caricature exhibitions. Investigating the circumstances,

conditions and materiality in which the charges were produced, with a methodology based on the dialectic of the visible and the legible, as well as the analysis of iconographic series. This work was possible through research into digitized collections of books, newspapers, satirical magazines, posters, pamphlets, postcards, photographs and other visual resources, available on the websites of national libraries, universities and foundations. In this way, it was possible to identify and analyze cartoons from 12 countries, in 11 different languages: Brazil, Argentina, United States, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, and in the end approximately 150 cartoons were selected, according to the investigative themes contained in each of the four chapters. The first chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the bestiary, thinking about the continuity and change in the meanings of different animals in the fight against Nazi-fascism, their reappropriation and transnational connections, highlighting the mutation that occurred in Brazil, with the FEB symbol (the smoking snake), as well as the emergence of the gorilla in the Western imagination, in the mid-19th century, until its fusion with the ancient figure of the barbarian Hun. The second chapter reflects on the Christian religious symbolism reappropriated by the cartoons (the allegories of Evil), highlighting three emblematic characters: Cain (the first murderer), the Antichrist and the Devil; as well as other biblical characters and themes. The “religious issue” (Kirchenkampf) will also be addressed in the third chapter, dealing with cartoons criticizing and resisting the process of Gleichschaltung (synchronization) of the Christian Churches (Catholic and Protestant) in Germany. This process of forced Nazification will also be imposed on caricature, with the use of political violence to control and co-opt satirical newspapers and magazines. Last but not least, the fourth and final chapter focuses on different cases of the “caricature in the dock”. Starting with the slow and gradual process of repression, control and censorship of caricature in fascist Italy, followed by the analysis of cartoons that provoked protests and legal proceedings carried out by Nazi Germany's diplomacy in neighboring countries, namely, in the Netherlands, France and in Luxembourg.