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18 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 difference 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 programme, 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 biographies 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’ ageold 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
