Mucha (magazine)

Mucha was a Polish satirical magazine published in Warsaw in the periods 1868-1939 and 1946–1952. In 1953 it was merged into another satirical one, Szpilki.

History

The magazine was founded and edited by bookseller Józef Kaufman, followed by other owners, including Feliks Fryze, Władysław Buchner, Bolesław Michalski, Antoni Orłowski and Ludwik Nawojewski. It included caricatures, jokes and humorous verses and short stories.

Title

While mucha means "fly" in Polish, actually the magazine was named after a daredevil acrobat Antoni Mucha, whose caricatures were prominent in the first issues.

Contributors

Among its many writers, editors, and illustrators were Franciszek Kostrzewski and Bolesław Prus, however the vast majority of contributions were anonymous.

Content

The pre-1939 version was known for its right-wing, nationalistic, and xenophobic topics. The level of the humor was rather low; examples:
Scans of Mucha may be found in the searchable online library polona.pl.