Visualizing the Enemy: Anti-American Propaganda in Soviet Georgian Political Caricature

Abstract

This article examines anti-American propaganda in Soviet Georgian political caricature during the early Cold War period, with particular attention to works created by Mikheil Chiaureli and published in the satirical magazine “Niangi.” The study argues that caricature in Soviet Georgia functioned not merely as humorous illustration but as an important instrument of ideological communication embedded within the wider propaganda system of the Soviet state. By combining art-historical analysis, visual semiotics, and historical context, the article explores how exaggerated bodies, symbolic props, compositional distortion, and accompanying texts were used to construct hostile images of Western political leaders, especially Harry S. Truman and Ernest Bevin. The research is based on archival work conducted in the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia and in the Art Palace – the Georgian State Museum of Theatre, Cinema and Music, as well as on the study of Georgian satirical periodicals published between 1900 and 1950. The article situates the Georgian material within broader debates on the political force of satire, the visual culture of the Cold War, and the role of caricature in shaping public perception. It demonstrates that Soviet Georgian caricature translated international political conflict into emotionally legible visual narratives for a Georgian-speaking readership and contributed to the formation of a stable ideological image of the West as aggressive, deceptive, and morally degraded. In doing so, the study highlights the value of Georgian satirical graphics as a major yet still insufficiently studied source for understanding twentieth-century visual propaganda. It also demonstrates that Georgian satirical material deserves a more prominent place in international scholarship on Soviet visual culture because it reveals how local media adapted global ideological narratives for regional audiences.