Cartoonist

The further time passes, the more often we peer into our history, into the past of the earthly civilization, to learn – how did our ancestor live? That is why the drawings discovered by researchers on ancient vessels, among old frescoes or in old books and containing a satirical overtones, these forerunners of modern caricatures are of particular interest, since the critical approach of authors to this or that phenomenon or the fact of the reality surrounding them reveals deep and unknown layers life of past eras. We are convinced that both these satirical drawings of antiquity and the caricature, which took shape at a later period as an independent and very partial art, were and are today not only a concrete stimulant of social activity, but also a clear and unambiguous reference book of negative phenomena of a particular period , evidence of an irreconcilable war, which the forces of progress have declared untruth.
Thirty-five years of creativity of the famous Bulgarian cartoonist Georgy Anastasov, the long, passed for him in a tense and, with the swiftness of the whirlwind, are also bold, bright, optimistic years of Bulgaria’s free life on the road to communism, which began on September 9, 1944. The development of George Anastasov as a citizen and creator, reflected in thousands of his cartoons, coincides with the development and maturation of our socialist community. Therefore, the laughter of Anastasov, aimed at remnants of the past, turmoil, mistakes and shortcomings, forms a second plan for the development of a new society, is a kind of “inventory list” of negative facts and phenomena of this historical period. The artist’s works, widely familiar to Bulgarian and foreign readers and viewers through the pages of such publications as Styrshal, where he works for almost 40 years, Rabotnicheskoe delo, Narodna mladezh, Logled, Vecherny noviny and Otechestvo Front “And also on his albums, exhibitions and numerous publications in foreign publications, are always filled with categorically public bias, relevance, severity, intolerance to ambiguities and a pseudo-intellectual claim to” subtext “. Anastasov is a bright continuer of the deep progressive traditions of the Bulgarian caricature, which has always been a weapon, not an entertainment, a sword in courageous hands, and not a fan for the gay ladies. Anastasov – from the generation of Bulgarian artists who picked up the banner of their predecessors – Zhendov, Angelushev, Veneva and Beshkov, who remained forever in the memory of the people as artists fighting for light and truth.
Georgiy Anastasov is very popular in Bulgaria, because he is not engaged in the sucking of personal histories and laughs, he does not unravel the merry balls of family betrayals, alcohol-drunk positions, cheap-entertaining caricature versions of paradoxical misunderstandings … Georgy Anastasov deals with problems that are problems of the majority, questions that excite the nation! Through humor, jokes, the language of artistic creativity Anastas is getting to the core of the problem, reveals it, ridicules the carriers of the negative. A person who is far from the creative process can hardly imagine how much faith, work, respect for one’s work, enthusiasm and neglect of the artist’s artistic pursuits should be necessary, so that he is rice every day, every week, in every issue of Styrsheya, about each a new significant public event, about every exciting news of international life.
Rapidly developing economy and constantly new relationships in society. Thinking, which is often ahead of time, but at the same time often lags behind it. Changes in the homes and souls of people who can never be interdependent by intentions, plans and figures. Because the ace comes from man and is directed at man, and man, as you know, is the most complex, the most perfect, and sometimes imperfect creation of nature. And all this the artist must see, feel, sometimes even predict …
Of particular note are the caricatures of Anastasov, dedicated to the moral problems of socialist society, among them many full of sincere and ardent concern for the formation of a young man. Greed and the desire for a quick “device” in life, flight from work – the only present field for the development and manifestation of the individual, a predilection for all great material acquisitions – these are the themes that in the work of Anastasov are marked by a series of memorable caricatures, and by turning and uncovering themes, and the artistic solution of these series, like all the work of the artist, imbued with a truly Bulgarian specificity. At the same time, they are clear to anyone who defends the principles of socialist justice and human truth, the principles of revolutionary acuteness and irreconcilability, and in this sense the caricatures of Anastasov are vividly international. Anastas long and patiently “learned” to draw, until he became a complete master with his own graphic language and style, with a healthy reality

Masters of the Soviet caricature
Ed. “Soviet Artist”, Moscow, 1984.