Art exhibition highlights Molla Nasreddin heritage

by Aynur Jafarova,  AzerNews

Azerbaijan's capital Baku will host the opening of an art exhibition devoted to the heritage of the Molla Nasreddin literary character inspired by 13th century Muslim cleric who was remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes, on June 21.

The exhibition, titled "The value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the modern world", is being organized by Miras Social Organization in Support of Studying Cultural Heritage and takes place in Baku Art Gallery.

The exhibits at the show, which aims to show the value of Molla Nasreddin heritage in the present-day world, are devoted to the topics of the Molla Nasreddin satirical magazine, which was one of the most remarkable projects in the history of the Azerbaijani press.

The Baku exhibition features works by young painters such as Yaylagul Ramazanova, Emin Elishov, Shahin Guliyev, Matanat Aghazade, Aydan Aghazade, Kanan Mammadov, Anar Shamsiyev, Gurban Orujly, Vugar Gurbanov, Konul Mammadova, Vusala Talibova and others.

The eight-page Molla Nasreddin magazine, which was published in Azerbaijani and occasionally in the Russian language, represented a new stage in the development of national satire and cartoon art. The features and columns of the magazine were discussions, short witty pieces of writing, humorous poems, advertisement and telegrams, satirical stories, anecdotes, cartoons, caricatures, illustrations, etc.

Drawing Fire

Iran's sketches of satire

Satire still thriving, Produced for the book "Sketches of Iran: A Glimpse from the Front Lines of Human Rights", this cartoon by Touka Neyestani is entitled "Forced Confession." Courtesy CNN.

by Sara Mojtehedzadeh, CNN 

In 2003, former newspaper editor Ali Reza Eshraghi made a mistake that cost him his freedom: he published a cartoon. 

The sketch in question, a drawing from 1937 depicting U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court, seemed an innocuous choice for the Iranian newspaper, Hayat No.

But Iran's Special Court for the Clergy disagreed. According to Reporters Without Borders it ruled that that the cartoon's depiction of Roosevelt looked suspiciously like the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini and was insulting to his memory.

The court shut down Hayat No, and Eshraghi spent nearly two months in prison.

 

A decade later, Eshraghi's friend and former colleague, journalist Omid Memarian, decided to honor the pressures placed on satirists in a book entitled, "Sketches of Iran: A Glimpse from the Front Lines of Human Rights."

The book, published in January by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, was informed by Memarian's conviction that political cartoons played a unique role in his country's struggle for democracy.

The Crossroads of Art and Human Rights: Sketches of Iran

by Omid Memarian , The Huffington Post

The following is excerpted from the introduction to Omid Memarian's new book Sketches of Iran: A Glimpse from the Front Lines of Human Rights:


One day in January 2003, my friend and colleague Ali Reza Eshraghi republished an old American cartoon in the Hayat No newspaper -- a cartoon the Special Court for the Clergy deemed insulting to the Islamic Republic's founding cleric Ayatollah Khomeini because they thought its character looked like him. The cartoon was actually an American satire of Franklin Roosevelt, drawn in the 1930s long before Iran was even an Islamic Republic, but that made no difference. Ali Reza was sent to Evin Prison where he spent two months behind bars; the Hayat No was banned and dozens of journalists lost their jobs.

Three years earlier, in January 2000, another cartoonist friend of mine, Nikahang Kowsar, drew a cartoon depicting a crocodile whose name rhymed with Mesbah Yazdi, an extremist cleric in Qom. The cartoon angered the powerful cleric's supporters to the point where they took to the streets. Mesbah supporters gathered for three days in Qom and other cities and did not end their protest until Nikahang was arrested and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a statement ordering the end of the gatherings.

Ministry of Culture authorities, Iran's security apparatus, and extremist conservative media could not tolerate even the vague similarity of cartoon characters to the country's officials, much less an attempt to actively caricature them. Both of my friends received death threats, though thankfully both escaped that fate.

For me, these two incidents illuminated the power of political cartoons: the depth of their penetration, the breadth of their reach, and their capacity to cause a cartoonist or editor to face the prospect of death.