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Edmund S. Valtman (1914- ) may be the only American cartoonist of the Cold War era who experienced Soviet rule firsthand. The Pulitzer Prize-winning (1962) cartoonist was working as a draftsman in his native Estonia when the Soviets overran the Baltic states in 1940. Russia went to war with Germany in 1941 and subsequently mobilized Estonian men under 50, including Valtman's two brothers, to the Soviet Union. Germany occupied Estonia for three years until the Soviets reoccupied the beleaguered nation. These tumultuous events and their repercussions marked Valtman profoundly -- ultimately bringing him to American shores and sharply shaping his anti-Communist stance on Cold War issues in his cartoons. This online collection draws primarily on the 340 drawings that he gave to the Library in 1999-2001. |
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Valtman used his art to skewer communists such as Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Mao Zedong, But his acid barbs were not reserved only for communists. Richard Nixon was the butt of many of Valtman's cartoons during the Watergate scandal of 1972-74 as was Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew. A caricature of President Idi Amin, who committed appalling atrocities against Ugandans, shows him as a bloated military figure with a head too small for his body. And literary giants such as George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett also received the Valtman treatment, albeit more kindly. |
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