Female Ethno-National Personifications in the Austrian Political Caricature of the Period of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1878)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the gender aspect of ethno-ational representations in political cartoons. The content of the study is formed by the materials of the political cartoon presented on the pages of the satirical magazines of Austria-Hungary during the Great Eastern (Balkan) crisis of the 1870 s. (Die Bombe, Der Floh, and Kikeriki). An attempt is made to systematize the feminine images of the Austrian political caricature during the Balkan crisis. Among them stand out: images of the Virgin Martyr (feminine passive-suffering personifications of the Balkan peoples and states along with the Ottoman Empire); feminine images of Austria (national representations of the country in the image of the Mother and heroized personifications of the Holy Roman Empire); images that are the personification of the theme of female deceit / “seduction” in politics and various variations of the harem theme in relation to the Ottoman Empire; feminine personifications of the infernal distortion of the Woman’s essence (war in the guise of the Gorgon Medusa, etc.). Such problems are considered as the formation of characteristic preferences of the Austrian political caricature in the distribution of variations of feminine images in relation to the image of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian empires and the Balkan peoples and states; ways of opposing feminine and masculine symbols of the countries participating in the main events of the Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878. The methodology of the research is based on “deciphering” the figurative and metaphorical way of constructing feminine ethno-national representations based on references to mythology and national history within the framework of imagology approaches, along with identifying the historical context of the international politics of the “great powers” in the Balkan region in the 1870s.