Krokodil Magazine

Krokodil (Crocodile) was the USSR’s most famous and longest-running satirical journal. It was first published as the illustrated Sunday supplement for a newspaper on 4 June 1922. Originally called Rabochii (The Worker), then renamed Rabochaia Gazeta like its parent newspaper, the supplement was humorous from the beginning. Satire, mainly in the form of cartoons and poems, featured heavily in the magazine, with one-colour illustrations in its first seven issues. As circulation increased, the editors became convinced of the need for a regular independently numbered journal, and the magazine appeared as Krokodil No.1 (13) for the first time on 27 August 1922 (Stykalin and Kremenskaia 1963: 176-179). The red crocodile pictured on the first edition’s front cover thereafter symbolized the aims of the magazine itself.