The image of Austria-Hungary on the pages of the magazine «New Satyrikon» in the first months of World War I

This article analyzes the image of Austria-Hungary as shaped by journalists at the weekly satirical magazine Novy Satyrikon during the first months of World War I (July–December 1914), when the Russian Empire was engaged in active military conflict with the Triple Alliance in the European theater of war, and the Habsburg Empire was one of its main adversaries on the Eastern Front. During the period under study, Novy Satyrikon correspondents devoted close attention to Austria-Hungary, its political and military characteristics (distinguishing features), in their publications. Historical-genetic and historical-comparative research methods were used in writing this work. The scientific novelty of this study is determined by its interdisciplinary nature, which combines the study of specific historical material and consideration of the theoretical problem of the formation of the image of another state in the texts of one of the printed media of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the XXth century. The author concludes that the pages of Novy Satyrikon portrayed the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Russia’s foreign policy adversary, an enemy of the entire Slavic world, a provocateur of regional conflicts, an oppressor of its own and neighboring peoples, and Germany’s “little brother” within the military-political bloc of the Central Powers. A military-political alliance with Germany and entry into a new, large-scale war were, in the view of the Austrian government at the time, the instruments that would, with a high degree of probability, restore Austria-Hungary to its former economic and political might and prevent the collapse of the «sick» empire. In reality, the Habsburg Monarchy's participation in World War I only accelerated the demise of Franz Joseph I's «prison of nations».