“Placards are cheap and provocative and they became a very productive tool in the sphere of info wars. The FSB has been alarmed by the expression of radical political ideas through a very accessible and universal medium, the placard”, says Anton Myrzin, a Russian artist and dissident from Perm.
The placard reached the height of its influence during the two world wars in the 20th century. Placards are easy to produce, cheap to disseminate, and, most importantly, very easy to handle. For these reasons a number of World War II era placards have remained iconic to this day. They have become items of mainstream culture. And what is more, their aesthetics still work very well in the context of the Donbas war on both sides.
In September 2017, more than 50 World War II placards arrived in Donetsk from St. Petersburg. The “DNR Ministry of Culture” openly declared that the aim of the event was to “keep up the morale of DNR combatants”.
The placards selected for the exhibition in general convey an aggressive war time narrative. The authors cultivated a hateful image of the enemy that the placards call to kill and destroy. In glaring contrast to the fascist creatures depicted, Soviet soldiers are portrayed as shining heroes.
Interestingly some placards disseminated in “DNR” draw on Nazi propaganda:
As recently as April 2018 a pro-Russian outlet published an entire collection of propaganda placards and caricatures. They appeal to the stereotypical Soviet image of the miner that was forged in the USSR and especially during Stalinism. They represent the strength of Donbas and pose a danger to everyone who comes and attacks their way of life. Ukrainian soldiers are portrayed as pathetic victims with makeup and coloured hair. The authors of these placards preferred to remain anonymous, but they did comment on their oeuvre. One commenter said that the placards were “just some fun” and that they spoke with the “voice of the people”.
Meanwhile in the neighbouring country, that keeps insisting it has nothing to do with the conflict in Donbas, there are also placards with similar narratives. Their authors use similar type fonts and colour schemes as in Soviet placards and the swastika is used to mark the political enemy.
This picture of a placard calling for support to Donbas separatism in Moscow was published by Russian human rights activist Nataliya Pelevina on her twitter account.
The already introduced artist Anton Myrzin, who was persecuted by the Russian secret service, also creates placards in the style of the World War II period.
In December 2014, the works of Anton Myrzin have been shown in the Kyiv modern Art gallery MH-17. In his home country Myrzin was meanwhile prosecuted for his work.
One more Russian artist whose works have been shown in Kyiv, Anton Chadskiy, has created an entire series of caricatures depicting a persona he calls “Rashka Kvadratniy Vatnik” (a character created on the image of SpongeBob SquarePants that embodies all the qualities of a Vatnik, a die-hard admirer of everything Soviet and authoritarian). Interestingly, this character was born already in 2011, years before the armed conflict in Donbas began.
Together with the works of Russian artists the competition called “Ukrainian patriotic placards” in 2014 and 2015 showed a number of pro-Ukrainian (or perhaps anti-Russian?) propaganda placards created by Ukrainian artists.
Ukrainian artists and designers make use of the same Soviet motives. Like their separatist counterparts, they attempt to stir hatred, in their case it is for everything Soviet or Russian and most of all against the president of the Russian Federation. These placards are sometimes in Ukrainian, sometimes in Russian. There are many references to the nation and sometimes they depict Ukrainian writers and poets, the standard-bearers of Ukrainian statehood.
Pro-Ukrainian placards, just like the ones that agitate against Ukraine, use some explicit language when they refer to the Russian political elite or to Russian soldiers.
Ukrainian soldiers are affectionately referred to as “Cyborgs” or as “our boys”
Some placards call for boycotting Russian products (calling Russians pejoratively “Moskal” and Ukrainians affectionately “Cossacks”). Some also intonate the slogans of the Ukrainian insurgent army (UPA)
The Ukrainian illustrator Svyatoslav Paschchuk created a series of pin-up themed placards called “separatism may harm your health”.
On the 2015 edition of “Ukrainian patriotic placards” there was an entire series of placards portraying Russia and Ukraine as two polar opposites. They are all in Russian.
The Facebook group In Ukraine posted a series of similar motives.
Left to right: “the Ukrainian army protects women and children, the Russian army hides behind women and children”, “freedom of assembly is guaranteed, protests are brutally dissolved”.
The Ukrainian artist Andrey Priymachenko created a series of placards glorifying the qualities of combatants in order to raise their morale.
It is worth remarking that not all placards in connection with the war or the annexation of Crimea are meant to instil antagonism. There were a few attempts of placards with a message that hostility is bad. For instance during the already mentioned exhibition in the MH-17 gallery in Kyiv, there were placards calling for an end of the war, without any political subtext.
Only one news source reported about a series of placards that appeared in the Crimean city of Sevastopol bringing up the topic of disrupted personal relations.
The artist Anton Myrzin says: “Thinking retrospectively, the herd instinct, the seeming greatness, the “victory fever”, the infamous “spirituality”, this is the entire arsenal of Russian propaganda, it’s pretty thin, and really not very big, but then again the audience that cherishes it is not very demanding. That’s why the Russian media brews this murky mixture just like in the old days, following the Soviet methodology. The principle that the contemporary Russian propaganda and Goebbels have in common is “make it simple and repeat it over”. The Russian press and television does this very successfully 24/7 and they get a lot of support by so called cultural leaders, popstars, showbiz icons and other servants of the Putin regime.”
In many ways this quote finds its reflection in the cultural forms of the occupied territories and, unfortunately, in the visual content disseminated in the rest of Ukraine too. It’s hard to underestimate the role of the placard in any propaganda effort and in any ideology. In 20th century America, in the Soviet Union and in Germany, with the help of placards the world views of millions were changed. The same methods (and often the same messages) can also work out in the 21 century and in the context of the armed conflict in Donbas. As we have seen, none of the involved parties has any qualms to use them.
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The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
04060, Kyiv, Ryzhska str., 73 G