Our Notes & References

An important run of this striking Ukrainian emigre satirical magazine, remarkable for its Cold-War caricatures covering more than 20 years. Published by Edward Kozak (1902–92, also EKO), who was also its principal caricaturist and cartoonist. He first worked for the Lviv-based satirical and humor magazines Zyz [Cross-Eye] (1927-33), Komar [Mosquito] (1933-39), and Nash dzvinochok [Our Little Bell] (1932-39), while consistently illustrating serial publications. In 1944, Kozak emigrated to Germany, where he headed an organization of Ukrainian émigré artists, active in Munich in 1947-48, the USOM (Ukrainian Association of Artists, or Ukrainska spilka obrazotvorchykh mysttsiv).

Kozak began publishing Lys Mykyta as his own satirical magazine in a camp for displaced persons (DP) in Munich in 1948. The magazine’s name was taken from Ivan Franko’s popular book of fables about a witty fox. When Kozak emigrated to the United States with the painter Liuboslav Hutsaliuk (1923-2003), another regular contributor and a pupil of Kozak, he resumed publication of his magazine in Detroit in November 1951. It first was published semi monthly (1951- 56), then monthly (1957-88) and later quarterly (1989-91). Hutsaliuk’s satirical cartoons and caricatures first appeared in Lys Mykyta in 1954. In the 1970s, both artists were cited amongst the best known of Ukrainian painters living in the United States.

Lys Mykyta intended to acknowledge Ukrainian national liberation movement and aimed at ”mobilizing the national spirit of all the Ukrainians in forced emigration all over the world. […] The magazine was strikingly powerful – its best political satires and jokes spread rapidly in various Ukrainian locations in the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and the European continent” (Yatsiv 2017). Among the main targets of the magazine were internal Ukrainian affairs, the Soviets’ Russification of Ukraine, Soviet propaganda and absence of freedom in the USSR, current international conflicts, political leaders of all countries and capitalism in general. Throughout its long history from 1948 to 1991, Lys Mykyta‘s agenda and design remained mostly unchanged, with striking colourful covers, punchy comments and clever deconstructions of the standard structure of periodicals, such as advertisements, letters to editors and horoscopes. While keeping their recognizable design, Kozak and Hutsaliuk still skillfully employed a wealth of other techniques and styles in their sketches referencing socialist realism, Soviet propaganda’s caricatures on capitalism, modernist photo collages and Ukrainian folk imagery.

Notable illustrations in these issues include:

1952, 15 February front cover: ‘Europe the toreador at the attack of the red bull’, EKO); back cover ‘Stalin in front of the mirror [with Hitler as his reflection]’ by M.D.);

1952, 20 March front cover: ‘Stalin interrogated at court’ by EKO.

1952, May front cover: Gulag prisoners marching in front of Politburo on the Red Square: ‘Living has become happier’, quoting Stalin.

1953, 10 March front cover: ‘Panic in Hell’ by EKO, marking Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953.

1954, 25 March back cover: ‘Concession of the Crimea to Ukraine’ by EKO.

1955, 10 Sept front cover: ‘The Soviet change their perspective on the US’ by EKO.

1968, November front cover: caricature comparing the Soviet war in Czechoslovakia and the US war in Vietnam by EKO.

1969, September front cover: ‘When pastors consort with wolves’, depicting Christian Orthodox and Catholic priests.

1972, September front cover: a caricature on the USSR finishing first in the Olympic Games 1972.

This group also includes one of the earliest publications of Lys Mykyta, when Kozak was still in Germany: a yearly supplement to the magazine, Lys Mykyta 1949 calendar, much thicker and richer than single issues, containing in particular a bold caricature of Stalin and humorous political horoscopes for each month of the year.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume 3. Author: Danylo Husar Struk; Ed. Volodymyr Kubiĭovych. University of Toronto Press, 1993.

Kuropas, Myron B. The Ukrainians in America. Lerner Publications, 1972; Yatsiv, Roman. ‘Edward Kozak: merciless but fair’. The Day. 23 January 2017.