History is horrid and funny at the same time. Ivan the Terrible made people smile that way - he beheaded dull people that he met on his way. Perhaps, it was he who gave life to the "black humour". There are a lot of sad moments in the Russian history, but the Russians like to joke about it. There were many jokes on Peter's the Great reforms, on French soldiers. Many luboks (cheap popular prints) were devoted to the historical events.

A lot of professional caricaturists emerged in Europe in the XIXth century.

The caricature series of O. Daumier "Ancient History" (1841-1843) chows mythology characters - Heracles, Achilles, Menelaus, Ulysses. The artist ridicules not the history but bourgeoisie, its tastes, manners, and morals. He is against foolish and insipid imitators. On one of the 50 lithographs a marble statue of beautiful Galatea turns into a fat aged woman who asks for some tobacco. On the other lithograph the ugly Narcissus admires his reflection in the mirror; the hungry Tantalus chained to a tree tries to get a bottle of wine, meat, and pies.

The caricature collection by G. Dore was introduced in 1854. There were pictures showing the deeds of Nikolai the I. The same year "Punch" depicted the emperor with a canon on his head and bayonets around.

The Crimean War was in full swing. Russian caricaturists ridiculed Western politicians. The artists devoted their caricatures not only to the military events. On the caricature by N. Stepanov N. Kostomarov argues with

M. Pogodin about history and folklore.

We meet caricatures devoted to history in every magazine in the XIXth -beginning of the XXth century - "Budilnik", "Jester","Satiricon"(World's history). Ridiculing historical events and politicians implicitly or directly was considered to be a good and progressive form.

Satirical series of pictures by M. Cheremnikh "How people fought for freedom" dates back to 1918-1919. N. Radlov was the author of "Historical sketches" ("Egyptian enterprise", etc.) Caricature series of E. Vedernikov ("Medical story"), Y. Ganf ("From the history of humanity"), V. Chizhikov ("A Funny story") were published in the "Krokodil" magazine. The album "Moscow (past, present, future)" made by E. Gurov and Y. Cherepanov was issued in 1979. The first picture in the album was Y. Dolgoruky choosing place for the future capital. There are also caricatures of Napoleon, St. Basil Cathedral, etc.

There are political cartoons drawn by foreign caricaturists. Napoleon is paltry in English and Russian caricatures; Suvorov occupying Prague, Warsaw, and Malta is awful; Hitler is vile in the Soviet cartoons; Stalin is insidious in the Western political caricatures.

An important but one-sided role in the "historical" caricatures belongs to Kukriniksi. Their political cartoons date to 1933-1959 ("Face of the enemy", "Civil War in the USSR", "Whom we beat", "Revolution opponents", "Masters of the old Russia"). Stolipin, Vitte, Kolchak, and Milyukov were mocked.