2
"How Kaiser Wilhelm Got into a Galosh": a Modern View of the Coverage of the Paris Peace Conference

"How Kaiser Wilhelm Got into a Galosh": a Modern View of the Coverage of the Paris Peace Conference

It would be shortsighted to underestimate the outcomes of the First world war. The mistakes made in this war, which were not taken into consideration, largely determined the further course of history of the 20th century. The radical restructuring of the world order did not solve all the accumulated problems. Over the past hundred years, researchers have been rethinking the role of the first world war: one of the key projects, which brought together 28 participants from 11 countries, was completed in the Romanian city of Alba Iulia at the conference “International Treaties of the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)”. According to its results, a collective monograph was published in the very heart of the victorious Entente, at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, entitled “The Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) and Its Aftermath. Settlements, Problems and Perceptions”.

The chapter “The Manipulation of the Public Consciousness through Russian Press Coverage of Events around the Paris Peace Conference of 1918-1920” was written by Irina Karabulatova, a RUDN professor. Based on archival materials, the author reveals the psychological mechanisms of propaganda influence on mass consciousness and the peculiarities of manipulating public opinion.

  • How did the Russian press conceal the results of the Paris conference and distract the public opinion from the signing of the burdensome Brest-Litovsk peace treaty?
  • Why were the propaganda materials targeted at soldiers?
  • How was the laughter discourse and the rhythms of Russian folk dances used in propaganda leaflets? Why did the creators of cartoons depict Kaiser Wilhelm in a galosh?
  • Why is Russia’s contribution to the first world war still undervalued?

The prolonged First world war put a heavy burden on our country and became one of the reasons for the revolutions of 1917 and the bloody civil war. Due to censorship, the Paris Peace Conference, which established the foundations of new world order, did not have a balanced presentation in the Russian press, despite the abundance of mass media that reflected diametrically opposed views of various political forces. Russia’s contribution to the overall victory was undervalued, and the press deliberately kept quiet in respect of the events of the conference.

To distract public opinion from the fact of Russia’s defeat in the war, newspapers of that time began to pay more attention to Russia’s domestic issues: the civil war and the emergence of a new state. On the other hand, the propaganda materials intended for poorly educated soldiers and peasants showed the opposite tendency: it reminded the target audience that Russia fought on the side of the victorious Entente. This gave the fighters a sense of winner’s euphoria.

Propaganda materials contributed to the successful manipulation of mass consciousness. They used examples from everyday practices that were familiar to the readers and fit into their value system.

Soviet propaganda leaflets also served as a method of ideological pressure needed to turn the soldiers, who had been forcibly recruited and were tired of the war, into committed defenders of the regime. The Bolsheviks seriously believed that the events in Russia in 1917 were only a stepping stone to the world revolution that would soon take place in Europe. With the help of propaganda materials, the fighters were efficiently persuaded to consider themselves soldiers of the world revolution successfully fighting against “capitalist exploiters”.

The basic principles of public consciousness control, developed at the dawn of the Soviet power, were actively used both in the era of developed socialism and in the post-Soviet period.

“Of course, the role of the First world war in the historical memory of our people is diminished by the Second world war. This is largely the result of the insult that the nation felt as a result of the signing the shameful Treaty of Brest. It devalued the contribution of Russia, which had been fighting on the winning side throughout the war but ended up among the losers. The insufficient information about the first world war is one of the reasons for unfair and incorrect interpretation of the facts. These days, publications tend to be fragmentary and scattered, so the key difficulty was to find and select the material. We had to compare data from a large number of archives,” Irina Karabulatova commented.

Background information:

Irina S. Karabulatova is a Doctor of Philology, professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of Philological Faculty at the Academy of Natural Sciences, an accredited expert of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Irina Karabulatova supervised the thesis research of more than 40 candidates and doctors of science.

 

Student's Scientific Initiatives View all
03 Nov 2017
June 22 - 26, 2017 in Barnaul, Altai State University, took place the Summer Academy of the BRICS Youth Assembly, an international event that brought together representatives of different countries
1437
Research and Innovative Activity View all
30 Dec 2020
In 2017, RUDN University scientists constructed a new explicit second-order precision difference scheme using modern computer algebra methods for 2-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations (NSE) [1]. This year, our mathematicians used a new scheme [2] to construct a numerical solution to the Cauchy problem with initial data (for t=0) as satisfying the continuity equation. Scientists managed to achieve previously unattainable accuracy of the continuity equation.
874
Similar newsletter View all
07 Jul
RUDN University dentists are the best of the best! Victory in the XX Prize of the Government of Moscow in the field of medicine

RUDN University dentists Samvel Apresyan and Alexander Stepanov received the 20th Anniversary Prize of the Moscow Government in the field of medicine. 98 applications, 12 finalists and only 6 of the best - among them are RUDN University doctors.

50
07 Jul
Chemists, philosophers, political scientists of the RUDN University presented reports at the Lomonosov conference at Moscow State University

In April, students, graduate students and young scientists from 30 countries participated in 48 sections of the Lomonosov International Scientific Conference: from journalism and sociology to geology and space research. RUDN University undergraduates and postgraduates presented their work in five areas.

74
07 Jul
The Grand Prix and gold of the Hi-Tech exhibition go to RUDN dentists

April 18-20, the international exhibition of HI-TECH innovations took place in St. Petersburg. Two RUDN University projects received a gold medal and the only Grand Prix at the exhibition.

65
Similar newsletter View all