2026 № 3 (58)

UDC 76.03/.09

LBC 85.03(2)

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2026-3-416-481

For cit.: Leskinen M.V. Images of ‘Poland, Slavic Sister’ and ‘Polish Brothers’ in Russian Visual Propaganda During the World War I (1914–1915). Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2026, no. 3, pp. 416–481. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2026-3-416-481.

Leskinen Maria V.

D.Sc. (in History), Chief Researcher, Department of Eastern Slavs, Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sсiences, 32a Leninsky Av., Moscow, 119334, Russia

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7638-507X

ResearcherID: C-1075-2018

Scopus Author ID: 57213197708

marles70@mail.ru

Images of ‘Poland, Slavic Sister’ and ‘Polish Brothers’ in Russian Visual Propaganda During the World War I (1914–1915)

Abstract. This article examines visual embodiments of the metaphor of the Slavic kinship of Russians and Poles in graphic art during World War I. From the very first days the Slavic question became a focal point of political propaganda. Official narratives incorporated formulas and epithets of the earlier Slavophile rhetoric, reviving 1870s ideals of Slavic unity and brotherhood. A new feature of 1914‒1915 was the inclusion of Poland and Poles into the ‘Slavic family’. A radical reinterpretation of the Polish question was reflected in the Manifesto of Grand Duke Nicholas of the 14th August 1914, which proclaimed “the resurrection of the Polish people and its fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia”. The metaphor of the kinship between Russia and Poland was intended to symbolically embody their ‘reconciliation’ in the face of the common German threat. It was actively used in political propaganda, journalism, and patriotic poetry during the first year of the War. The analyses of allegorical images (sisterhood of Russia and Poland and the military brotherhood of Russians and Poles) in magazine illustrations, postcards, and posters demonstrated that iconography of Poles and Maiden of Poland / Polonia was absent from the Russian visual tradition, unlike the established complex of allegories of the Southern Slavs. Therefore, Russian artists turned to motifs of the 19th-century Polish patriotic poetics, in particular, to the image of the crucified martyr Maiden Polonia suffering under the oppression of her enslavers (so as the Russian Empire). The generalized image of the Polish warrior was created based on the well-known Russian visual canon, with its attributes of the 17thcentury Polish nobleman (a konfederatka (a peaked cap), a żupan or kuntusz (long garments), a sabre, etc.), while the ‘Russian brother’ was portrayed as a Russian soldier in a modern uniform. Allegorical depictions of PolishRussian kinship prove to be original and unconventional manifestations in Russian political visual propaganda of 1914‒1915.

Keywords: visual propaganda, Slavic unity, World War I, national personifications, Russia, Maiden Polonia, Poles

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Received 10.02.2026

Revised 06.05.2026

Accepted 13.05.2026