Vincent Krassousky


Vincent Krassousky was a Russian cartoonist who immigrated to France and lived there as a refugee. Krassousky's character, Vica, was a sailor, and Vica was also Krassousky's nickname.

History

In 1902 he was born in Kiev, then in the Russian Empire. He had fought with the White Russians in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, doing so from the ages of 16 and 18. According to a doctor who examined him as part of a criminal trial, his father died in Bulgaria during the war, he had a negative attitude towards Communist Bolsheviks and that they had killed his mother and sister. Claire Tufts, author of "Vincent Krassousky-Nazi Collaborator or Naïve Cartoonist?", noted that as he considered the Soviets responsible for the deaths of his loved ones, he had "an intense, visceral hatred of the Russians" that others in France were aware of. He never fathered children and had not married.
His first commercial artwork was an advertisement for the breakfast drink Banania made in 1933, and he began his Vica comics in a Belgian publication in 1935. He also wrote "The Extraordinary Adventures of Bib and Bob" from the beginning to the middle of 1936, published in Paris-Soir Dimanche.
Krassousky stayed in Paris after the Nazi forces invaded Paris in 1940. He never worked for publishing companies in the area not directly occupied by Nazi Germany, so Tufts stated that "it is not surprising" that Krassousky did not move. Vica comics were published in Gavroche from 1940, until 1942, and then from January 1943 in Le Téméraire, a comics publication for children that aligned with the Axis; as part of the latter Krassousky wrote some comics supporting the Nazi German cause. In the comics the character Vica, in Alaniz's words, "mocked and excoriated England, America, the Bolsheviks, and "Jewish conspiracies."" Claire Tufts stated that the Krassousky comics were "far less offensive" compared to other Le Téméraire comics. Le Téméraire ended on 1 August 1944.
According to Alaniz, the author "may have been mentally deranged". Tufts stated that "ven a cursory look" at the Vica comics made it clear that he "was much more than a naïve cartoonist living and working in Paris during the German occupation.":
He was arrested in October 1944 after the liberation of France, and was accused of collaborating with Nazi authorities by making the comics, and was accused of having fascist sympathies by members of the public. He stated that he was innocent, and that a German cartoonist he worked with wrote and/or created the storylines, but he was convicted. He was given a prison sentence of one year and a 1,000 franc fine on 23 February 1945.
Today evidence has emerged that two Germans worked with Vica for "Vica au Paradis de l'URSS," "Vica contre les Services Secrets Anglais" and "Vica défie l'Oncle Sam" one to write the captions the other to help for the illustrations especially for the several photos included in those albums.
It must be stressed that Vica was the only illustrator from Le Téméraire to be criminally punished, all of his colleagues like Liquoi, Erik and Josse were hired without moral issues by Vaillant, a new children's comic magazine controlled by the French Communist Party. A police report noted "The comic Vaillant which is published is a mere copy of Le Téméraire: Only the title was changed."
However many collaborators from Le Téméraire received death threats during the summer 1944 and later some of them were convicted of relatively minor crimes and given various sentences.
A police report mentioned "Immediately after the liberation, the premises of Le Téméraire 116 rue Réaumur were searched and occupied by communist cells self-branded CADI."
When freed from jail Vica published some comics in Cadet Journal under the pen name Tim. In the late 1940s Krassousky disappeared.

Vica

The Vica comics starred Vica, a sailor described by José Alaniz, author of Komiks: Comic Art in Russia, as being similar to Popeye. Other characters were Tatave; Kamphara, an African character; and several anthropomorphic animal characters.

Works