Krokodil

Krokodil (Russian Крокодил ) was a Russian satirical magazine. It was first issued on June 4, 1922, initially by the publisher Rabochaya gazeta ( Рабочая газета, workers' newspaper ). In 1932, the magazine was published in Pravda publishing house, the main publisher of the CPSU. By 1932, crocodile appeared weekly, then three times a month. There are feature articles, published humorous stories and cartoons.

In the 1920s existed in the Soviet Union in addition to crocodile numerous satirical magazines. After massive political and ideological attacks on " bourgeois satire" that served the New Economic Policy (NEP ), censorship, bans and prohibitions of other magazines from 1930 remained the only Crocodile officially approved satirical magazine that was distributed throughout the Soviet Union. What role did satire of the Soviet regime, it is clear when considering the fate of the official crocodile and persecuted by the regime OBERIU literary group, which included writers such as Daniil Kharms, Alexander and Nikolai Vvedenski Oleinikow compares.

From 1930 was the most important crocodile official mouthpiece of the Soviet ideology at all levels of the socio-political life. " The satire " of the crocodile was not limited to small everyday issues, but reflected the key issues and the key events of the internal and external policies of charges against Leon Trotsky, against alleged spies and enemies of the people in the 1930s to attacks against the West German revanchism, American imperialism and its satellites, colonialism, etc.

Until the beginning of perestroika, the crocodile publications had a very aggressive character. Crocodile served the policy of official antisemitism, including the race against cosmopolitans: Numerous repulsive, degrading, openly anti -Semitic cartoons and comments of the crocodile accompanied the doctors' plot and attacked the murderers in white coats ( see, for example: Crocodile, 1953, No. 3 ). 1963, expressed the prominent film director Mikhail Romm with the highest horror to an offensive cartoon that was published in crocodile on 20 March 1949 and a figure with apparently Semitic facial features represented that held a book in his hand, on which the inscription Zhid ( жид, dirty Jew ) was seen. Romm stressed: not André Gide [ Андре Жид ], but exactly thus: dirt Jew ' [ жид ].

In 2000, the magazine was stopped for financial reasons. Various attempts at resuscitation failed to match the success of the Soviet period.