Random Satirical Beasts

The following are a random assortment of etchings and engravings in the theme of political satire made between the 17th and 19th centuries.

Satire In Hell

Artworks and quotes taken from The British Museum.

Russian Revolution Zines of 1905

"On Sunday, January 9th, 1905, Tsar Nicholas II ordered trooops to fire on a peaceful procession of workers demonstrating in St. Petersburg, unleashing a storm of strikes, mutinies, violent uprisings, and brutal reprisals that raged across Russia for well over a year. Known collectively as the Revolution of 1905, these upheavals transformed the political landscape and set the stage for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed. Bloody Sunday also marked an important watershed for Russian graphic artists. With the momentary collapse of censorship, over 300 different satirical magazines were published during the Revolution of 1905, more than had seen the light of day in Russia during the entire nineteenth century. Most of them survived for only a few numbers before the censors caught up. Yet the ouput was impressive all the same. Rushing to fill the expressive void, artists and writers captured the events and personalities of the revolution with biting satire and aesthetic sophistication. While styles and subject matter varied, artists often chose to depict nightmarish scenes of bloodshed and repression, drawing on images of the macabre and the mystical that had already been in vogue in Symbolist circles across Europe at the turn of the century."

See more at the collection on display in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Found at Trixie's Treats

William Allen Rogers - Political Cartoons (1911 - 1919)

"The grade crossing monster"
Published in: New York Herald, July 26, 1911.

"The new morality play exit demon rum--enter drug habit" Published in: New York Herald, Jan. 23, 1919. p. 15.

"Lo, the fell monster with the deadly sting who passes mountains, breaks through fenced walls and firm embattled spears, and with his filth taints all the world - Dante's Inferno"
Published in: New York Herald, Nov. 4, 1917, p. 19.