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Mikhail Gorbachev

Thursday September 1, 2022

September 1, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 1, 2022

A making-of clip of this cartoon may be found here.

Disdained by Putin, Gorbachev walked a tightrope to defend his legacy

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent his 22 years in power relentlessly hacking down the legacy of the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

August 11, 1999

The two rarely met, and Gorbachev, who died Tuesday in Moscow at age 91, cautiously couched his remarks about the Russian leader, even when they weren’t critical. Unlike Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev never requested or received a guarantee of immunity from arrest or prosecution, he said.

Gorbachev’s criticism of Putin was often indirect, as in his 2015 book “The New Russia,” in which he wrote that Putin had taken “advantage” of a flawed constitution drafted on Yeltsin’s watch — for example, by using an imprecise provision on term limits to return to the presidency in 2012.

Posted in: International Tagged: 2022-28, animation, cartoon process, corruption, Glasnost, history, International, Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Obit, Perestroika, polonium, Russia, USSR, VladimirPutin

August 14, 2007

August 14, 2007 by Graeme MacKay

Last week I did a cartoon showing Vladimir Putin atop Lenin’s tomb reminiscent of photos we’d see of Soviet leaders during the cold war years. I was inspired to draw it following renewed interest by the Russians in the Arctic from the North Pole to the Mediterranean via the Caucasus. It made me think back, before Boris Yeltsin, to the last time I drew Lenin’s tomb back when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power, as he warming up to the west with Glasnost, and implementing political and economic reforms otherwise known as Perestroika. The year was 1989, democracy was spreading throughout Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall had just come down, and I was a student at the University of Ottawa. I was just starting out getting my worked published in the student press, through the campus newspaper called The Fulcrum. I had a cartoon strip called:

It was modern day (mostly Canadian) political news placed in a medieval setting. Brian Mulroney was the King of Canadaland, Gorbachev was the Russian Tsar, they rode around in horses, they spoke in Monty Pythonesque olde englishe. For most of the time it existed between September 1989, and April 1991, I collaborated with my friend, Paul Nichols, who was a fellow history student. He helped write it, and I drew it. It was published for each weekly edition of the Fulcrum.


Click here to see a larger version.

In retrospect, they were a bit wordy. The jokes were corny. The drawings were a bit crude, but keep in mind that we were twenty year olds. At the time home computers were still very basic word processors, there was no Internet, and early versions of Photoshop were still half a decade away. The inking of Alas & Alack had to be configured with exacto knives and glue stick. Tones were done using Chartpak shading film, and some special text was incorporated using Letraset transferrable lettering. It was all very time consuming work to put together a single Alas & Alack cartoon. A perfect excuse to keep me from reading textbooks, writing essays and studying for exams.


Click here to see a larger version.

Throughout the series I portrayed former Canadian Prime Ministers Clark and Turner, who were still active in politics at the time, as “erstwhile kings” who would show up every now and then carrying the crowns they once wore when they were in charge. Pierre Trudeau would show up portrayed as some sort of God-like character who lived in an acropolis type of temple on Mount Royal.

More Alas & Alack in the days to come….

FEEDBACK

I remember Alas and Alack quite well, Mr. Mackay. I started studying at U of O in 1990 and I remember seeing it and a whole bunch of other cartoons of yours in the newspaper. Looks like you’ve done pretty well in cartooning eversince. Not surprising! Glad I can keep enjoying your work.

Marc LeBlanc (August 16, 2007)

Posted in: Cartooning, International Tagged: Alas & Alack, Boris Yeltsin, Brian Mulroney, Cold War, comic strip, commentary, Feedback, Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin

Tuesday March 28, 2000

March 28, 2000 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 28, 2000

Wary optimism best way to view Putin’s regime

When crooks and clowns — the Russian mafia and Boris Yeltsin and Co. — have ruled a country for years, anyone with a modicum of restraint and common sense looks good by comparison. That’s especially true of Russia, a country still struggling in the transformation from a totalitarianism to democracy, from superpower to … well, a much lesser world power.

That’s not to damn president-elect Vladimir Putin with faint praise, but to acknowledge the realities of the massive nation. Russia is still very much the “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” that Winston Churchill described in 1939. Getting elected, let alone governing in Russia, happens within an entirely different set of rules and expectations than here in the comfortable West.

Russia is a nation of terrible disparities: Enormous wealth for a select few and soul-stealing poverty for many more; a space station orbiting Earth but a disintegrating health system that has led to life expectancy for Russian men of just 58 years. Russia today is plagued by crime and alcoholism but is also “Motherland” to a nation of remarkably resilient and patriotic people.

Putin now has to govern while balancing Russians’ still-tentative moves into the unknown of a free-market economy and those same citizens’ demands for restored stability.

Despite all that, the West should be warily pleased with Putin’s election, which appears at the moment to be good for that country and for its neighbours. He has a strong popular mandate and is outspoken in his determination to root out corruption, reverse the country’s fortunes and do it without resorting to the excesses of his former masters.

Putin brings to office the pragmatism and ruthlessness of the spymaster that he was. The brutal assault on Chechnya has been more about campaign strategy than military tactics, and Putin’s first major challenge must be to find a graceful way out before his army becomes mired in an Afghanistan-style war of attrition.

Putin is smart and articulate and has shown he has the ability to be a good manager. Time will tell if he will be a good national leader. In the meantime, the West should applaud the winner of only the second democratic presidential election in Russia’s history — but keep two fingers crossed for Russia while we do so. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial, A10, 3/28/2000)

 

Posted in: International Tagged: Boris Yeltsin, International, Josef Stalin, Leonid Breshnev, Matryoshka dolls, Mikhail Gorbachev, nesting dolls, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Please note…

This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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