A unique study on the history of comics enriched the Presidential Library’s collections

The Russian drawn story which history goes back several centuries, remains unknown for many people. Irina Antanasievich, Doctor of Philology of the University of Belgrade (Serbia), clarified a question. She donated a unique book to the Presidential Library’s collection, the fruit of a long-term study - Russian Comics of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (2018).

At the very beginning of his story, the author argues that comics is part of the great Russian literature: “The format of the drawn story is familiar to Russia, moreover, it is a fully mature national cultural phenomenon that is recognizable in its specificity”.

There are plenty of completely truly amazing facts. For example, Irina Antanasiyevich describes the “great-grandfather” of the comic book - Russian popular print, which emerged in the 16th century and very quickly became popular: “This is about popular prints, which, although borrowed from outside, acquired quite national features on Russian land. The standardization of popular prints (after the discovery of I. D. Sytin of the publishing house of the national “popular prints”, which made him a monopolist) increased its popularity”.

However, popular print was not like comics at all. The direct ancestor of the domestic graphic novel, according to the book “Russian comics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia”, the researchers consider a series of funny stories published by State Councilor, amateur artist Andrei Sapozhnikov in the middle of the XIX century. The album titled "The Adventures of Christian Hristianovich Violdamura and his Arshet" described the adventures of a slacker who imagined himself a virtuoso musician. There is one more discovery for the reader of the work of I. Antanasievich - the accompanying explanatory text for these illustrations was written by the world famous compiler of the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language”, which is stored in the Presidential Library collection: “This protocomics was created according to the typology of Western stories about the adventures of the unlucky falling into various comic situations hero. Sapozhnikov made 50 paintings, to which he suggested Vladimir Dal to write the text”.

Besides, in the 19th century the Russian protocomics looked quite different from the way we used to: there were no “clouds” with the direct speech of the characters. Their character was more to an educational function than to a purely entertaining one. Here is what Irina Antanasievich writes: “The popularity of these illustrations led to the creation of large thematic illustrated albums, which were also formed on the principle of collage, and explanatory signatures were given not as part of the drawing itself, but directly below it, as an accompanying text. In turn, the popularity of such illustrated magazines was due to the fact that they offered a visual picture in the function of educational information - both historical, retrospective, and actual”.

In the 20th century - in the Soviet era - the work of our artists visually got even closer to the modern comic book. This is especially true of the graphic history of “The Journey of a Star Fly "YUNT" to the Moon”, published in 1932 in the magazine “Technique – to Youth” with the subtitle “A Fantastic Story Without Words”: “The author was Vladimir Mikhailovich Golitsyn - an artist, polar explorer and author of board games, illustrator of books is K. I. Chukovsky. Unfortunately, only a couple of episodes (in issues 23 and 24) were drawn and the comics did not go further”.

It should be noted that a similar fate befell many Soviet comic books. According to the ideological line of the USSR, at that time comics were considered exclusively a Western phenomenon, alien to our culture society. It seemed that the Russian graphic novel was sentenced. However, it is not true. Our comics not only overcame all the difficulties, but also laid many unshakable foundations for the world comics culture. It happened in Yugoslavia. Here is what the author of the study writes: “In the history of the European comic book, there were Russian names: the foundations of the comics of one country - Yugoslavia, which made a significant contribution to the history of the European comics, - there were laid by people bearing Russian names. Artists began to draw comics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, whose names the historians of the European comic book would later unite into a phenomenon called the “Belgrade Circle”, - George (Yuri) Lobachev, Nikolai Navoev, Sergey Solovyov, Konstantin Kuznetsov, George (Juka) Yankovich, Alexey Rankhner, Ivan Shenshin, Sebastian Lechner. Outside the “Belgrade Circle”, for various reasons, there are three more Russian names - Vsevolod Gulevich, Vladimir Zhedrinsky and Nikolay Tishchenko”.   

But why did the land of Yugoslavia become the very fruitful soil on which the Russian comic book flourished? The answer to this question is given in the work of I. Antanasievich: “It was born in Belgrade - largely due to the fact that the Russian emigrants engaged in publishing activities saw the potential of a new art form and, having invested their enthusiasm and financial resources in it, created a Yugoslav comics - a phenomenon that takes a special place in the European history of the drawn story”.  

The book is detailed on each graphic history created by our émigré artists. They began with the works of the classics of world literature: for example, Lobachev painted comics on the “Dubrovsky” by A. S. Pushkin, Rankhner - on the “Inspector General” by N. V. Gogol. Suddenly a universal superhero Zygomar is created. Nikolai Navoev invented it long before the American Superman, and it is likely that his image was copied exactly from the Russian-Yugoslav Zigomar.

I. Antanasievich, summing up her research, says that the study of the unique Russian comic book in Yugoslavia will bring many discoveries. It is already clear that the comics itself suddenly has become another thread that binds the centuries-old fraternal relations between Russia and Serbia.