Vigilantes Against Smoking
Sergei Yolkin
2013
******
In Russian, Народное ополчение (Narodnoe Opolcheniye: People’s Militia or Muster) brings up visions of Minin and Pozharsky during the Smuta, of the First Patriotic War against Napoleon, and the desperate defence of Moscow, Leningrad, and Sevastopol in the VOV. This caricature also has overtones of the Sov era Добровольная Народная Дружина/ДНД (Dobrovolnaya Narodnaya Druzhina/DND: Volunteer People’s Posse) and of Soviet anti-drunkenness posters. To use the word ополчение as he did, Yolkin’s taking a sly dig at the current anti-smoking campaign. He’s hinting that it’s overblown and more than a little self-serving. Again, a Russian would be au fait about many of these things, and would grasp Yolkin’s point immediately, but a Westerner needs a heads-up on it all to see the thrust of the jab.
I chose “vigilante” as the rendering of ополчение because “militia” would be too formal… and the picture makes it clear that Yolkin finds the whole thing too ludicrous for words. It’d also give it a military colouring that Yolkin’s not trying to convey.
BMD
______________________________
On Friday, the newspaper Izvestiya reported that RF Gosduma deputies proposed a ban on smoking rooms in buildings, smoking onscreen in TV and movies, and for the new anti-smoking law to enter into effect immediately, not in phases, on 1 January 2014.
11 January 2013
Sergei Yolkin
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/caricature/20130111/917724306.html
Voices from Russia 
13 January 2013. Sergei Yolkin’s World. Vigilantes Against Smoking
Tags: anti-smoking, cartoons, Dmitri Pozharsky, Dmitry Pozharsky, Druzhina, Eastern Front (World War II), editorial cartoons, First Great Patriotic War of 1812, Great Patriotic War, Kuzma Minin, Minin, Moscow, Narodnoe Opolcheniye, Patriotic War of 1812, political commentary, politics, posse, Pozharsky, Pozharsky and Minin, Prince Pozharsky, Russia, Russian, Russian culture, Russian Front, Russian history, Sergei Yolkin, Sevastopol, Smuta, Soviet, Soviet Union, State Duma, Time of Troubles, tobacco control, USSR, vigilante, VOV
Vigilantes Against Smoking
Sergei Yolkin
2013
******
In Russian, Народное ополчение (Narodnoe Opolcheniye: People’s Militia or Muster) brings up visions of Minin and Pozharsky during the Smuta, of the First Patriotic War against Napoleon, and the desperate defence of Moscow, Leningrad, and Sevastopol in the VOV. This caricature also has overtones of the Sov era Добровольная Народная Дружина/ДНД (Dobrovolnaya Narodnaya Druzhina/DND: Volunteer People’s Posse) and of Soviet anti-drunkenness posters. To use the word ополчение as he did, Yolkin’s taking a sly dig at the current anti-smoking campaign. He’s hinting that it’s overblown and more than a little self-serving. Again, a Russian would be au fait about many of these things, and would grasp Yolkin’s point immediately, but a Westerner needs a heads-up on it all to see the thrust of the jab.
I chose “vigilante” as the rendering of ополчение because “militia” would be too formal… and the picture makes it clear that Yolkin finds the whole thing too ludicrous for words. It’d also give it a military colouring that Yolkin’s not trying to convey.
BMD
______________________________
On Friday, the newspaper Izvestiya reported that RF Gosduma deputies proposed a ban on smoking rooms in buildings, smoking onscreen in TV and movies, and for the new anti-smoking law to enter into effect immediately, not in phases, on 1 January 2014.
11 January 2013
Sergei Yolkin
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/caricature/20130111/917724306.html