THE ROLE OF CARICATURE IN SHAPING COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Abstract

Caricature is a genre of visual art whose expressive language is rooted in irony. It depicts reality in an exaggerated, grotesque manner. The most distinctive features of an event or individual represented in caricature are deliberately hyperbolized in order to create a sharp humorous or critical effect. At first glance, this seemingly harmless genre can, in fact, become a powerful tool of propaganda, as its symbolic language operates through emotion and immediate visual impact — it is not read, but perceived visually. Naturally, political groups clearly understood the potential of caricature and frequently used it to influence the masses and shape collective memory.

This article analyzes the function of caricature in the process of forming collective memory in Soviet Georgia. Particular attention is paid to the visual, rhetorical, and symbolic means through which satirical and humorous press not only represented contemporary political discourse but also deliberately interpreted the past. In this context, caricature is considered not merely as an artistic or entertaining genre, but as a form of ideological influence that participated in the redistribution of historical meanings and the reconfiguration of collective perceptions within public consciousness.

The analysis of materials from the magazines Niangi and Tartarozi demonstrates that caricature in the Soviet era became an active mediator of memory politics. Through the interaction of visual grotesque, irony, sarcasm, and textual captions, the Democratic Republic of Georgia and its political elite were systematically portrayed as weak, unsuccessful, and historically doomed forces, while Soviet statehood was depicted as a space of progress, order, and development.

Such oppositional representation served not only to discredit political opponents but also to revise historical processes and reinforce negative narratives within collective memory. As a result, caricature emerges as a powerful ideological instrument through which the Soviet regime reassessed the past, diminished alternative state experiences, and legitimized a new political identity.

Keywords: Democratic Republic of Georgia; caricature; Soviet Georgia; Bolsheviks; Mensheviks; Niangi; Tartarozi; propaganda.