Veliki Miting (The great meeting) - 1951

Veliki miting is the first and the only satiric cartoon made in ex Yugoslavia. It was conceived in a moment in which political tensions between Staljin and Tito reached the climax, i.e. after the Yugoslavian expulsion out of the Cominform [1]. After that, the Soviet regime started to diffuse among its allies false informations about Yugoslavia. In this cartoon, Yugoslavia is ironically called "cudovišna zemlja", which can be translated as "terrible country" or even "forbidden country".

The main character, a Rumanian journalist, is sent from Bucharest to Albania in order to write about a meeting organized by Enver Hoxha [2] against the draining of Skadar Lake promoted by Yugoslavia. The Lake was half Yugoslavian and half Albanian. In the eyes of the draughts men [3], Albanians become frogs and mosquitoes, and their lake - a puddle. On his way back, journalist's airplane was diverted by a storm and he found himself flying over Yugoslavia.

Through the journalist's binocular we can see signals of reconstruction after the Second World War: industries, power stations, highways, new districts and even entire cities under construction. We can read writings as: "The industries are ruled by workers! ". It seems that there are great changes in the entire Yugoslavia. It was in the intentions of producers to make the public believe that all those changes and improvements were due to the application of socialist principles to the politics and to the industrialization of the country. The district seen by the journalist from his airplane is New Belgrade. Just like New Zagreb, New Belgrade was built to be a synthesis of a new type of city organization, born through socialist principles which were applied to urbanism and architecture. This funny cartoon offers a general view of the political situation in Eastern Europe (in particular it tells about the relationships between Romania, Albania and Yugoslavia) as it was at the end of the 40's. Every single frame is full with optimism and trust for a better future. This cartoon can be seen as a direct expression of feelings and experiences of Yugoslavian people during those particular years.

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[1] Organism of consultation between European communist parties, founded according to the will of Moscow in 1947. After the expulsion of Yugoslavia, Tito founded The Non Aligned Countries Movement choosing in this way to be independent both from the United States as from the Soviet Union. 
[2] Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) was the first secretary of the Workers Party, the most powerful Albanese party from 1943 until 1985.
[3] It is interesting to note that the draughts men were inspired by Walt Disney's way of representation. This cartoon is in fact a sort of exception in the East Europe cartoon production. The Neugebauer brothers were enthusiastic Walt Disney's fans and they have even tried to put themselves in contact with him, but Walt Disney has never answered their calls.