Among the exhibits at the SASA Gallery of Visual Arts and Music in Belgrade was this collection of Serbian-language propaganda posters from the Second World War. The exhibition, Even in Captivity – Freedom!, explored the art produced during the occupation of Serbia and demonstrated that creative work could serve as a means of survival, resistance or propaganda.
As some background to proceedings, Serbia was then part of Yugoslavia, whose Government joined the Tripartite Pact in March 1941 before an anti-Axis coup took place just two days later. Germany invaded and occupied the country, installing a collaborationist administration in Serbia while resistance movements fought both the occupiers and one another. The Serbian-language poster was therefore propaganda aimed at people living under occupation, intended to maintain confidence in an eventual German victory.
The wording on the central poster reads Ovo je ipak V br. 1, which translates literally as “This is, after all, V No. 1”, although “And this is only V No. 1” better conveys the intended threat. The distressed and perspiring lion represents Britain, while the globe incorporated into its body appears to refer to the British Empire. Approaching from the right is a V-1 flying bomb, surrounded by large Vs in case anyone had somehow failed to understand the principal theme of the messaging.
The V-1 was the first of Nazi Germany’s so-called vengeance weapons and attacks on London began in June 1944, but although the weapon was damaging it had rather limited accuracy. By this time things were of course going very wrong for Germany and events were turning decisively against it. This messaging was all intended to frighten Britain while reassuring audiences in occupied Serbia that Germany still possessed weapons capable of transforming the war. Ultimately, the V-1 caused substantial death and destruction, but it could not reverse Germany’s military position and Belgrade was liberated on 20 October 1944.
I photographed several of the other posters in this exhibition because I had never encountered them before and I’ll likely return to some of the others in the future.