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Dagnoslaw Demski, Liisi Laineste, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska
caricatures changed through these turbulent times, taking into account the fact that
failed propaganda was seen as one of the reasons for losing the war. Ihe main dif¬
ference between the comic images of the two wars (WWII caricatures being more
aggressive) is related to the general context of war and the historical and cultural
knowledge of people in general. Thus, caricatures from WWI display fewer motifs
that demonise the enemy, probably because this was the first experience of such
a total war that extended over continents and nations. Symbols (both new and old,
for example those from Ancient Greek mythology) and self- and Other-directed
stereotypes were actively used to boost a positive self-image and deride the enemy.
Stereotypes about the Other flourished in places where people fled from the
war, contact between the more remote places and a variety of foreigners stimulated
their upsurge. Britain was a favourable migration destination for Jews during the
interwar period. Anna Rosner describes in her chapter the Kindertransport pro¬
gramme, which organised the transportation of underage Jews to British towns.
Depending on the age of the children, their adjustment to the new environment
was different; many lost connection with their roots and identity in the process,
only to start searching for them after the war. As Rosner’s focus is set primarily on
the general perception of the cultural otherness of the Jews in the UK, we can see
references to the imagery connected with the immigrants in her excerpts of biog¬
raphies of those who had taken part in the Kindertransport programme.
Moving on into the WWII period, Anssi Halmesvirta writes about alienating
one particular nation as the result of problematic relationships. The Finns’ age¬
old hatred for the Russians, as the author sees it, is a tool of self-identification
through juxtaposition: where Russians are seen as unorganised, barbaric and
demoralised, the Finns work for a common goal, civilised and with high moral
standards. The caricatures published during WWII in the Finnish sports journal
Suomen Urheilulehti (‘Finnish Sports Journal’) lend support to this opposition and
establish the Finns not only as the saviours of their own country, but as defending
Western civilisation and its democratic values against the alleged Eastern barbarity.
Humour was an inevitable part of these images because of censorship against more
aggressive forms of depiction of the Other; it was also inevitable that it would
suggest the superiority of the Finns over the Russians, making the latter look both
laughable and miserable and thus weak and vulnerable.
Olli Kleemola, continuing the discussion of the Finnish perception of the
Other during the war, concentrates on documentary photographs taken by Finnish
propaganda units, which were modelled on the example of their Nazi counterparts
in the Wehrmacht. He studies the differences and similarities of visual propaganda
in the photographs and suggests that while the Nazi Germany was fighting a racially
motivated war and the images reflected this position, the Finnish photographic
material presents a more nuanced and less aggressive (even child-like and comical)
picture of the Finnish enemy, the Russians. This was also visible in the tendency to