What Soviet cartoons REALLY taught us? Propaganda and the cringe we didn't notice
For decades, Soviet cartoons shaped children's ideas about "good" and "evil," about the state, enemies, and their own worth. But what was really hidden behind the smiling characters and supposedly "the kindest in the world" stories?
In the new issue of "Farewell, Empire!" Olesya Kotubey-Herutska analyzes how the USSR used animation for propaganda and why cartoons for the youngest worked to create the "ideal citizen": submissive, poor, ready for self-sacrifice and war. We also talk about censorship, party orders, and Ukrainian animators who were not allowed at festivals.
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Episode guests:
Andriy Spivak, YouTube blogger and stand-up comedian
Alyona Penziy, Dovzhenko Center film expert, film critic;
Oksana Moroz, infohygiene expert, writer
00:00 – Why were Soviet cartoons propaganda?
01:11 – “Good Policeman” and the False Image of the USSR in Children’s Cartoons
02:36 – How Propaganda Pervaded All Childhood in the USSR
03:53 – “Malchish-Kibalchish”: The Cult of Victimhood and Self-Sacrifice of Children
06:53 – Anti-Capitalism and Caricatured “Bourgeois”
09:31 – The Banned Cartoon “Glass Harmonica”
10:49 – The Cult of Humility, Poverty, and Condemnation of Dreams
11:42 – Normalization of Bullying and Mocking Appearance
12:43 – Russian Symbols as “Our Common Culture”
14:14 – How Russian Animation Replaced Ukrainian
16:37 – Why Adults Considered Soviet Cartoons “the Kindest”
18:34 – Traumatic Plots for Children
20:17 – Ideological Cartoons as a Mandatory Norm for studios
22:06 – Double censorship for Ukrainian animators
25:39 – Poll: is it worth showing Soviet cartoons now
28:27 – Which Soviet (Ukrainian) cartoons are worth preserving
29:20 – “Cossacks”, “Petryk Pyatochkin”, “Kapitoshka” as good examples
31:10 – “Masha and the Bear” – the most popular cartoon among children?
33:10 – What to show children in Ukrainian?
Team:
Host: Olesya Kotubey-Herutska
Cameramen: Sofia Pasevich, Oleksandr Perlyk, Nadiya Mykolayenko
Editor: Maria Dergachova
Editors: Oleksiy Matskevich, Nadiya Mykolayenko
Design: Anastasia Rybakova, Nika Nazarenko
Line producer: Kira Savchenko
Executive producer: Anna Pogrebna
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