Clippings from Russian satirical journals of 1906
The Blaze, The Bayonet, The Magic Lantern, and The Mirror; with an unsympathetic mention of The Stinger
In the last few issues of Russian Propaganda, we looked at individual texts and magazines; today, I’m sharing several clippings from different journals, each of a different nature. We have:
a diagram showing the short life cycle of a politically active Russian citizen, from The Blaze;
a disturbingly prescient fairy tale about the interplay between the domestic and foreign policies of a certain Rascal, from The Mirror;
a very down-to-earth cry for help from The Magic Lantern;
and some industry bickering from The Bayonet.
All these pieces are 116 years old.
Translations are mine, editing by Daniel Hojnacki.
Rascal
A fairy tale
Once there was a Rascal. He kept beating his little brothers. There was nobody to stand up for them — complain all you want, nothing would come of it.
Their father would say:
— So he was beating you, and what were you doing? Crying? Yelling? How dare you disturb the silence and order? I’ll show you!
Their mother would say:
— I have no time for your quarrels, there’s too much to do around the house.
Their uncle, a military man, would say:
— Remember the chain of command. Attention! About, face! Forward, march!
Their grandpa would say:
— Behave well yourself, and no one will bother you. Don’t worry about his beatings, worry about becoming a better person. He gives you a punch, you respond with a kind word.
Grandpa said all kinds of things once he got started. Even after Rascal’s brothers stopped listening, he would keep telling his tales.
Once, Rascal went into the street and started picking on the boys from the neighborhood. But the neighborhood boys got the better of him, and he got quite a whooping. Rascal went home, crying and wailing, and his little brothers watched him from the window, saying to one another:
— Well, that’ll calm him down.
Far from it! Rascal started beating them twice as hard. Says:
— You’re in cahoots with the neighborhood boys, now I’ll really make your lives pain.
F. Sologub, from The Mirror, #1 for 1906.
Announcement
In light of the fact that the St. Petersburg Office for City Telephones cannot provide a date for when users who requested an installation of a telephone some 15 months ago will finally get one, the office of The Magic Lantern asks private individuals to let us know of a way to acquire a telephone. If such notice leads to an expeditious acquisition of a telephone, our office promises a complimentary subscription to the magazine for the year 1906.
For your information: the wire has been laid in early November of 1905.
The office of The Magic Lantern, Karavannaya Street, 7.
From The Magic Lantern, #4 for 1906.
A sport
The other day, A. Heyermeier, the editor of a little magazine called The Stinger, once again narrowly escaped a beating in a restaurant for publishing profanities in the latest issue of his publication, which were targeted at a private individual who didn’t want to shake Mr. Heyermeier’s hand.
On a related note, we apologize to the readers of the previous issue of The Bayonet for wasting their time and space on the page listing the aforementioned editor’s other feats.
We wrote about him as a type.
In one of the issues of The Stinger, Mr. Heyermeier accuses us of reporting on his personal life.
We don’t agree with this.
If a man is beaten up once, or even twice, that’s his personal life.
But if a man gets a whooping everywhere he goes, that’s relentless social activism, and that’s what we allow ourselves to cover.
From The Bayonet, #5 for 1906.
The cartoon shows how a picture is worth a thousand words - WOW! So illuminating!
Thank you. These artifacts do speak volumes. The way you have chosen them and put them together is like a careful embrace of a nightmare.