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148 Anssi Halmesvirta Because of wartime censorship which forbade extreme pictorial expressions of opinion and attitudes, the Russian soldiers could not be shown in figures and cartoons in the same aggressive way as they were depicted in the texts, but in a rather humorous, satirical way: they could be ridiculed for stupidity and various, real or imagined, weaknesses and failings. Many jokes were also connected to the image of the Ruskies, for example, in the last phase of the war it was said that they had at last learned to ski but their feet had to be nailed onto the skis (Swomen Urheilulehti, February 15, 1940). Or he could be used as of an object of a lesson, as in illustrations asking “please, do not give away anything that might help the enemy” in which he was shown as a devious spy listening to street-talk. In any case, he was not shown as a typically Slavic Untermensch as the Nazis showed him (cf. Kleemola, this volume). The humanity of the Russian was not expressly denied as hatred was buried in the illustrations under humour. The pictorial examples come from Suomen Urheilulehti, which was in comparison with daily newspapers and regular journals quite straightforward in its textual and pictorial representations of the Ruskie (for example “The unsportsmanlike Ruskies hit us below the belt”)?. Suomen Urheilulehti has been chosen here for closer scrutiny because it has not been previously studied and contained a whole series (eight) of figures of Ruskies from January 1940 to March 1940. The cartoonist was Arnold Tigmann, who worked for the Finlandia news agency and drew the same series for the newspaper Suomen Sosiaalidemokraatti (‘Finnish Social Democrat’, Hänninen & Karjalainen 2014: 24-25). Being humorous or educational, they contradicted the aggressive textual message (Halmesvirta 2014). They were suitable entertainment especially for soldiers who were also sportsmen, serving on the Eastern front. In them hatred could not be shown and fear was couched in gestures of easy defence (Figs 55, 59), weakness (especially Fig. 57), sheer stupidity (especially Fig. 56) or childish playfulness of the adversary (especially Fig. 54). Some of the figures (especially Figs 58, 60) were not actually humorous but instructive and moral. In them the Russian was devious and the Finn clever. Figure 61 combines some of the elements appearing in other images and pinpoints the Russian essence and national character with the disgusting features of a female Ruskie (see detailed explanations below). This sort of humour was compensation for the ‘small’ Finns facing the attack of the mighty Soviet Union (cf. David vs. Goljat), and it was highlighted when the Finns realised that they could hold their ground. As Vesa Vares in his study of humorous essays in a leading daily newspaper, Uusi Suomi (‘New Finland’) has shown, the message of humour was supportive and stabilising, creating feelings of superiority for the Finns (Vares 2012: 59-61). 2 Suomen Urheilulehti, March 3, 1940.
