IN VLADIMIR PUTIN’s RUSIA , CARTOONS ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER
With his easily recognizable features, his omnipresence in every area of Russian
politics and foreign policy, and his penchant for withering, snappy one liners, Vladimir
Putin is a cartoonist’s dream. At the beginning of his eight year reign, he was launching
a bloody war in Chechnya and promising to waste terrorists; as it draws to a close he is
denying rumors of secret plan to marry a 24 year old gymnast, and telling journalists to
keep their snotty noses and erotic fantasies out of his private life. There is plenty of
material for even the most unimaginative cartoonist to have a field day.
There is only one problem for Russian cartoonists, however – they are not allowed to
draw him.Mikhail Zlatkovsky is perhaps most famous cartoonist in Russia, with his
sketches appearing daily in Novye Izvestia newspaper and a history of political cartoons
and existential art work dating back to the 1970’s.
He was the first Russian cartoonist to draw Mikhail Gorbachev, and actively caricatured
Boris Yeltsin. He has also drawn Stalin, although the cartoon that he did as a teenager
in 1959 took until 1988 to be published.
When Yeltsin named Mr. Putin as acting president on New Year’s Eve 1999, Zlatkovsky
drew the ailing Yeltsin dredging a mermaid tailed Putin out of the sea and putting a
crown on his head. Putin became a regular feature of Zlatkovsky’s cartoons. But the
new president was initially inaugurated on may7, 2000, and the next day, Zlatkovsky’s
editor at Litraturnaya Gazeta, where he then worked, came into the newsroom, fresh
from a Kremlin reception.
He said, “We are not going to draw Putin anymore. The young lad is very sensitive”.
From that day onwards Zlatkovsky has not had another cartoon of Mr. Putin published.
Now a days the only cartoons of the Russian leader to appear in the Rusian press are
those that depict him in a positive, or even heroic light.
As Mr. Putin’s rule went on, says Zlatkovsky, the number of taboo subjects increased –
ministers, Kremlin aides, Chechnya and top military bras all became off limits. Recently
a cartoon depicting Alexy II, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, prompted a
phone call from the patriarch and a strong request of never to draw him again.
There is no central censor these days. Sitirise the ruling class today, and tomorrow the
newspaper offices will be paid a surprise visit by fire inspectors who will find a regulation
that the office does not meet mandatory requirements of fire security and close it.
Or there will be a call from print works stating that the price of paper has increased
manifold. Many cartoonists have given up making cartoons, finding other work, and
newspaper editors err on the side of caution and not publish cartoons at all.
Perhaps the only cartoonist in the 1970’s who was bold enough to subvert the system
was Vyachelav Sysoyev – his cartoons were published in the west, and he was arrested
in 1983 AND JAILED FOR DISTRBUTING PORNOGRAPHY.
For now, internet remains a place where Russians can laugh at their leaders, and blogs
and websites are full of Putin’s jokes. But many fear that as Mr. Putin prepares to leave
the Kremlin, even the internet is coming further under governmental control.
The authorities fear satire and mockery more than anything else. Nothing dents their
aura of greatness like satire.
-DR. NAVRAJ SINGH SANDHU, ww.navraj@gmail.com