GENOCIDE IN CARTOONS
In the Artists’ Union of Armenia the festival “Sun Dragon 2015” was opened, named – “Pandora’s Box”, which was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
It may seem strange to touch such a difficult, tragic theme by cartoons’ “language”, but let’s not forget that a cartoon is a serious means of propaganda.
This year the geography of the festival was quite extensive: 141 authors from 47 countries, and 9 cartoonists were from Turkey. In the showroom of the 1st floor of the Union the contest works were presented, on the second floor – retrospective ones, i.e. published in 1875-1920-25 years paintings and posters in international periodicals («Rire», «Silance» …), related to the tragic events. And on the third floor was the exhibition of the invited cartoonists.
As chairman of the Union of Artists Karen Aghamyan said, “here is not only subject of the Armenian Genocide, but also of the Holocaust, and in general, the theme of war, violence, evil, terrorism… All these is the pain of all of us. Cartoonist drew what he felt, here is his attitude to all these. ”
On Paul Dzhangirov’s picture we see – Turkey wants to enter Europe, and 1915 is under his feet. Bo Jorgensen of Denmark drew Erdogan, who naively asks – where are Armenians? And in the background a Turk very quickly hides a mountain of skulls of Armenians. In another cartoon executioner allegedly is crying, but at the lower level a knife in his hands is seen.
“There is no sorrow, no pain of others, – said Hemingway. – For all of us the bell is ringing, if we do not come to our senses…”
ALICE ALAVERDYAN
The Evaluation Committee recognized as the best the cartoon of Witold Barbara from Poland.
