Informația și umorul, instrumente ale partidului și propagandei comuniste. Studiu de caz revista Urzica și Albert Poch cu seria Bilă
Information and Humor, tools of the Communist Party and Propaganda. Case study: the Urzica Magazine and Albert Poch with the Bilă series

Summary/Abstract: The issue of official humor used by the Romanian Communist regime, through caricature, as a form of visual propaganda, will be approached from the perspective of the graphic series, Bilă, which appeared for over 5 years in the magazine “Urzica” (April 1977 - November 1982), the main humor magazine in Romania between 1949-1989, inspired by the Soviet magazine “Krokodil”. The stated intention of the magazine was to educate by capturing “mistakes, weaknesses, in their caricatured and satirical aspect - but not detached from reality – and making them public”, therefore to educate, by suggesting appropriate behaviors. Through the symbolic and affective implications, hidden, or at least apparently disguised by the humorous formula, caricatures manifested themselves as a special form of monopoly policy over information and cultural or journalistic messages, using the technique of distortion (exaggerating certain features, emphasizing or, on the contrary, eliminating others), without the need to preserve the appearance of an objective journalistic message. The analysis of this source will be performed, on the one hand by analyzing the cultural context, the symbols, and on the other hand by observing the frequency of the topics approached by the artist, the position inside the magazine, during the 5 years, taking into consideration the artist’s relation with the regime. Beyond the declarative purpose of the magazine and the first reading of the message, this series, by its apparent simplicity, is relevant to how this type of graphics changed its role: the manipulation assumed by publishing in a controlled setting, capturing valid comic situations, beyond the context in which they were created or the presentation of the subjects, which at a deep analysis represented the reality perceived by individuals and not by the regime.

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