• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Archive
  • Print Edition

World War I-era Russian propaganda posters portray food as evil

March 4, 2014 - Alyse Camus

World War I-era Russian propaganda posters portray food as evil

Food was in high demand during the First World War, especially in Russia. The food shortages were so constant that they were ultimately one of the factors that helped to incite the revolutions of 1917. Although seemingly minor compared to the famine Eastern Europe would later experience under Stalin, food shortages were instrumental in harvesting a deep resentment toward the tsar and general war weariness.

For everyday citizens, getting food in cities was a full-time job. It required spending long hours in line only to be rewarded with slim rations—and sometimes nothing at all. It would make sense to assume that all the food was going to soldiers at the front. However, by 1915, only a year into the war, the Russian Army was also suffering from the food shortage.

The Russian economy simply wasn’t equipped both to fight a war and feed its citizens. Young men left the countryside in droves after being conscripted into the army, severely cutting the available labor force and slowing agricultural production. Inflation as a result of the war then made it impossible for the remaining farmers to make a profit on their goods. No one could afford to grow food, and few could afford to buy enough of it. Food then became a prominent subject in Russian propaganda.

The Harry Ransom Center is home to the diverse collection of Kuharet’s Russian World War I posters. A surprising number of these prints pertain to food: specifically food that has been personified as evil. Even the act of eating food is portrayed as unpleasant—something that would likely have been incomprehensible to the starving nation.

Staples such as onions and potatoes morph into crude caricatures of Franz Josef, Wilhelm, and his sons, insisting that the evil of the Germans could only have grown in the garden of the devil himself. Another poster titled “Wilhelm’s Menu” replaces the expected food on the menu with violent actions against Wilhelm: showing him drowning, beaten, and left broken and alone. Posters such as these served to create negative connotations between food and eating.

Food was also strangely tied to nationalism, specifically in a series of posters titled “European Cuisine.” In this set, countries involved in the war are all personified as food: Germany and Austro-Hungary are both portrayed as conniving sausages, while Russia is equated to a hearty bowl of kasha (the Russian equivalent of porridge). While the sausages try in vain to consume the other “countries,” the kasha spills forth to overtake them. This poster is on view in the Ransom Center’s current exhibition The World at War, 1914–1918. The Russian kasha is made up of figures of soldiers—the only human characters on the poster. Even in posters real Russian food was lacking.

Food and the experience of eating were both portrayed as dangerous, violent, and unpleasant in a futile effort to make the starving Russian population forget the normalcy associated with these actions.

The Ransom Center’s collection of World War I-era propaganda posters have been digitized as part of the digital collections.

Please click the thumbnails below to view full-size images.

European Cuisine is the first poster in the series that details the start of the war between the German and Austrian sausages and the Russian porridge and the concerns of the other foods (countries).
European Cuisine is the first poster in the series that details the start of the war between the German and Austrian sausages and the Russian porridge and the concerns of the other foods (countries).
European Cuisine (Second Course). The second poster in the series illustrates the definitive victory of the Russian porridge over the Austrian sausages with the support of the English beefsteak and an American eagle.
European Cuisine (Second Course). The second poster in the series illustrates the definitive victory of the Russian porridge over the Austrian sausages with the support of the English beefsteak and an American eagle.
How the Devil grew his garden. A poster showing the Kaiser and his sons growing out of various vegetables.
How the Devil grew his garden. A poster showing the Kaiser and his sons growing out of various vegetables.
Wilhelm's Menu. A four-panel cartoon depicting the Kaiser being defeated at breakfast, lunch, and dinner before being forced to sit in defeat.
Wilhelm’s Menu. A four-panel cartoon depicting the Kaiser being defeated at breakfast, lunch, and dinner before being forced to sit in defeat.

Filed Under: Art, Exhibitions + Events Tagged With: First World War, food propaganda posters, Kuharet, propaganda, Russian propaganda posters, World War I, WWI

About Alyse Camus

Camus was an undergraduate intern who majored in American Studies as well as Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. Her research interests included childhood, war propaganda, and 20th century literary relationships between Russia and the United States.

Primary Sidebar

Archive

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate What is Research? World War I

Recent Posts

  • The Knickerbocker Theatre Collapse
  • On the Record: Black Creators and the Jazz Age
  • Ransom Center experience leads to new challenge
  • Films represented in the Drawing the Motion Picture exhibition
  • Celebrate with us in 2023

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2023 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy