The 203rd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday,  Dec. 12, 2017 at 7pm at The New School, University Center, 63 Fifth Ave, UL 105 (lower level).  PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION. Free and open to the public.

Stephen Norris on “Communism’s Cartoonist:  Boris Efimov and Soviet Political Caricatures.”

Boris Efimov (1900-2008) was the most prolific Soviet propagandist.  Over the course of his astonishing career, which spanned the entirety of the Soviet experiment, he estimated that he published 35,000 cartoons in publications such as Izvestiia, Krokodil, and Ogonek.  Efimov’s cartoons allow us a chance to see consistent themes, figures, and mentalities within Soviet culture from beginning to end.

Stephen Norris is Professor of History and Interim Director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.  His research focuses on Russian visual culture and propaganda.  He is the author of two books:  A War of Images:  Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity, 1812-1945 (2006) and Blockbuster History in the New Russia:  Movies, Memory, Patriotism (2012).  He is currently writing a biography of Boris Efimov.

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