By Cadwalader Crabtree. Posted on 19 October 2021.
Back when Archelaus actually had a blog, I contributed a number of brief essays on vintage graphics that still get a lot of traffic. So, a remarkable vintage propaganda cartoon having recently come my way, I'm hoping people will enjoy a write-up!
First, let's review the historical background for anyone who might not be altogether up on these things.
Czechoslovakia came into existence with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, at the end of the First World War. Although its founders conceived of the new state as a home for the Czechs and Slovaks, the borders they demanded—and largely received—at the Paris Peace Conference heavily favored strategic and economic considerations over the ethnographic principle. As a result, interwar Czechoslovakia had large national minorities, chiefly German and Hungarian, heavily concentrated along its long borders with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. These minorities, though better treated than comparable populations elsewhere in the region, understandably tended to feel hard done by, and they accommodated themselves to the new regime with great reluctance.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany heightened the danger of the situation, for his geopolitical ambitions required the destruction of Czechoslovakia, given that country's strategic location, significant military capacity, and formal alliances with Germany's adversaries. In this situation, the grievances of the German minority gave him a convenient pretext to make trouble.
The German annexation of Austria in the spring of 1938 dramatically increased the pressure on Czechoslovakia, for the Third Reich now surrounded the western half of the country on three sides. The Nazi propaganda machine immediately kicked into high gear, vilifying the Czechs for their allegedly brutal oppression of the German minority.
By fall, the two countries were on the verge of war, a prospect that frankly terrified the French, who were committed by treaty to defend Czechoslovakia, as well as the British, who were similarly committed to defend France. The result was the fateful Munich Conference, where the two Western Powers supinely agreed to give Hitler everything he said he wanted—immediate annexation of the ethnic German border lands—in exchange for his forgoing what he actually desired—a glorious military campaign to crush the Czechs.
Brusquely excluded from the conference itself, Czechoslovakia's leaders were presented with a cruel choice. They could either accept the loss of their heavily fortified and economically valuable western borderlands, or fight Germany alone. Bitterly, they submitted.
Other countries quickly took advantage of the situation to press their own claims. While Poland simply seized the coal-rich district in which Czechoslovakia's Polish minority chiefly resided, Hungary felt constrained by military weakness to employ diplomatic means. When direct negotiations failed, Germany and Italy arbitrated the dispute, resulting in the First Vienna Award, which granted Hungary a populous belt of territory stretching the full length of the Hungarian-Czechoslovak border.
And so we come, at last, to the cartoon in question, a Hungarian propaganda piece that will, I fear, require considerable further explication:
The copy that came into my possession is in the form of a postcard, mailed from Komárom (Slovak: Komárno; German: Komorn) to Budapest on 16 November 1938 — fourteen days after the Vienna Award and ten days after the Hungarian Army marched triumphantly into this border town. The postcard is a black-and-white photographic print of what looks likely to have been a full-color original, perhaps a poster that may have appeared in the streets of Komárom at the time. The cartoon is signed pseudonymously by "Komáromi Medve," or the "Komárom Bear."
The work's title is long and convoluted: "ČSR 1918-1938, vagy: Hazug csehpimasz cseheldi Ede bácsi szovjethernyójának pravda vitézi hőskötteménye 3 képben." This is challenging to translate, but I hope my rendering, if clumsy, is not too unfaithful: "The Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1938; or, Pravda vítězí, the heroic epic of the lying, impudent Czech Lord Uncle Edward's Soviet caterpillar, in three pictures."
There is a great deal to unpack here! First, Pravda vítězí (Truth prevails) was Czechoslovakia's official motto. Second, "the lying, impudent Czech Lord Uncle Edward" refers to Edvard Beneš (1884-1948), who had just resigned as president of Czechoslovakia following the Munich disaster. Prior to assuming the presidency in 1935, Beneš had been Czechoslovakia's foreign minister from its inception, and as such he had represented Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference with great effectiveness. He was also the moving force behind the anti-Hungarian alliance of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, known as the "Little Entente." Consequently, he was something of a bête noir for many Hungarians. Third, as we can see from the illustrations, the "Soviet caterpillar" is Czechoslovakia itself, which the artist has caricatured rather brilliantly, if nastily, as a monstrous larva. The "Soviet" accusation derives from the Czechoslovak treaty of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union, signed in 1935 as part of the larger French alliance system directed against Germany. Indeed, referring to Czechoslovakia as a "Soviet aircraft carrier" had been a staple of Nazi propaganda against the Czechs ever since, although the Soviets did not in fact have any troops or air bases there.
There are also two linguistic points to make concerning the title. The Hungarian word csehpimasz, which I have rendered here simply as "impudent," actually denotes a kind of sweetened fried yeast-cake served with jam—but it is also, bizarrely, a compound of the words cseh (Czech) and pimasz (impudent, insolent, brazen), which is clearly the reason the cartoonist chose to use it here. The word cseheldi poses even greater difficulties. The native Hungarian speaker I consulted on this point confirmed that no such word exists in Hungarian, but told me it does suggest "an ironic and made up nobility title," which I have thus decided to render very inadequately as "Czech Lord." I would have gone with "Lord of the Czechs," but given the grammar of the sentence, this would have been even clumsier.
The oddity of csehpimasz and cseheldi obliges me to point out that simmering dislike of the Czechs has made its way into the Hungarian language in a number of ways, notably in various idiomatic uses of the adverb csehül (in the Czech language, in the Czech way). These include csehül állunk (literally, "we're standing in the Czech manner," but meaning "we're in a mess") and csehül érzi magát (literally, "to feel Czech," but actually meaning "to feel depressed"). One might note that the traditional Hungarian view of the Slovaks is also unflattering, as suggested by a number of disparaging proverbs regarding them, the most notorious of which is perhaps Kása nem étel, taliga nem szekér, tót nem ember (Porridge is not a food, a wheelbarrow is not a wagon, a Slovak is not a man).
To return to our cartoon, however, the first of the three promised pictures is labeled "1938. szeptember 24. (mobilizáció)" (24 September 1938 (mobilization)), a reference to the call-up of Czechoslovak military reservists to defend the country, ordered on 23 September, just days before the Munich Conference supervened on the 29th. Quivering with rage, the Czechoslovak caterpillar looks extremely ferocious, as it huffs and puffs and spits thunderbolts, while exclaiming in Czech "Nedáme ani pýd [píď]!!" (We won't give an inch!!), in Slovak "Ne dáme [nedáme] sa!!!" (We won't give up!!!), and in Hungarian "Jaj neked Europa!" (Woe betide you, Europe!). The eye of the monster, which corresponds geographically to the Czechoslovak capital, is helpfully labeled "Zlata [zlatá] Praha" (Golden Prague).
The second picture is labeled "1938. október elején" (early October 1938), i.e., immediately after Munich. The caterpillar, now much diminished, has an astonished expression and exclaims, "? ? ! Ay, ay, ay!!! Cože?!" (? ? ! Ay-ay-ay!!! What's going on?!). Beneath the creature is the text, "... hiszen népünk és hadseregünk egységes, mint a knégli!!! ... nehéz falat fekszi a gyomromat!" (Surely our people and our army are united, like knedlíky!!! ... I ate more than I could digest!!!).
Knedlíky (dumplings), served together with roast pork and sauerkraut, constitute the Czech national dish. Served in slices, the dumplings are anything but united, and though delicious when made well, they can be heavy and indigestible when made badly.
The third and final picture is labeled "1938. november elején" (early November 1938), i.e., just after the First Vienna Award. The poor caterpillar, now quite emaciated, seems ready to expire, gasping "!!-CHHHHU!!...," to the plaintive accompaniment of the Czech national anthem, Kde domov můj? (Where Is My Homeland?). Beneath is the concluding text, "... és ezzel kész a világraszóló jubileum ... de a fogyókúrának még nincs vége ... ! (And with this, the sensational celebration is ready ... but the diet is not over yet!").
In this final prediction, the cartoonist proved to be a true prophet, for within four months Hitler chose to complete his conquest, marching the Wehrmacht unopposed into the western half of rump Czecho-Slovakia, while permitting the Slovaks to declare a German-dominated pseudo-independent state, and deigning to allow the Hungarians to seize what remained of the easternmost tip of the country, the impoverished Carpatho-Ukraine (today Transcarpathian Ukraine). It would, of course, all prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Hungarians, who would be forced to disgorge all their territorial gains at the expense of Czechoslovakia, as well as those to come at the expense of Romania and Yugoslavia, once their German patrons finally and catastrophically lost the war Hitler was so determined to start.
