This one takes some unpacking, but it is a marvelous example of epidemic disease fueling conspiracy theories that in turn invite the satirist’s attention. In the spring of 1854 the imperial Russian general Prince Mikhail Gorchakov led troops over the Ottoman frontier at Silistra (present-day northeastern Bulgaria), accelerating the Crimean War. The Russian siege did not go well, and in late April Prince Ivan Paskevich (Paskiewicz), the Ukrainian-Cossack military figure notorious for crushing the Polish rebellion in 1831 and presiding at the surrender of the Hungarians during the 1848 revolution, took charge. In early July following a battlefield mishap he was in turn replaced by Prince Gorchakov, though Paskevich remained the active senior commander. Several weeks later Paskevich ordered general withdrawal, not least under diplomatic pressure from Austria, which threatened to join the conflict. The talented diplomat Prince Alexander Gorchakov, who would become Foreign Minister several years later and was a distant cousin of the general, had been dispatched as ambassador to the Habsburg Court only weeks before this cartoon was published.
“Piefke” was a mildly derogatory Austrian term for Prussians. Here we find two self-important Berliners in conversation, clearly animated by events related to the Crimean War. The image itself was recycled whenever the two characters were featured in conversation about current events.
Piefke: “So we still don’t know for sure about the cause of the fire in Schottenhof?” (One week earlier the massive Schottenhof complex in the northwest corner of the inner city had been badly damaged by a fire on the roof, an event that warranted a visit by the emperor.)
Pufke: “Yes, yes! You already know –“
Piefke: “Well, what?”
Pufke: “Don’t you know who is to blame for the grapevine disease –” (A Styrian observer took this to be Uncinula necator, a powdery mildew first identified by British gardener Tucker in 1845. The Phylloxera blight noticed in French vineyards in 1853 was then spreading rapidly. The definitive cause had not yet been identified; hence the generic name for the disease.)
Piefke: “No!”
Pufke: “And what about cholera?” (In the midst of the third cholera pandemic, this was the year physician John Snow famously identified the water-borne source of the outbreak on Broad Street in London.)
Piefke: “Not that either.”
Pufke: “Listen, Piefke! You are terribly ignorant. Now you see, Prince Gorchakov has the grapevine sickness on his conscience; for he turned the grapes at Kalafat and Silistra sour. Prince Paskevich unleashed cholera on the world; for when he did not succeed in taking Silistra by a coup de main, he was full of anger [recall the misleading “choleric” association of the disease], and since then a general fury has raged through the lower intestines of Europe. Wasn’t it the Russians who tried to ignite the blaze of hatred and discord in the courts of Europe and Asia? But what they did at all the courts: they certainly did at the Schottenhof as well.”
(Der Humorist, Vienna, 1854)
This is one of the earliest readily available Austrian cholera cartoons. Founded in 1837 by the polymath Austrian Jewish journalist Moritz Gottlieb Saphir, Der Humorist only rarely featured cartoons in its early years. In any event, a cursory search did not turn up any cholera images from its recurrence during the 1848 revolution. With the appearance of Figaro in 1857 and Kikeriki in 1861 Der Humorist gradually increased the frequency of cartoons on its pages. In subsequent months there were indeed several more cholera cartoons in the Piefke and Pufke series.
Piefke: “Have you already taken a measure against cholera?”
Pufke: “Oh yes, as a rule I drink great amounts!” [punning on Massregel]
Piefke: “Tell me, do you keep your own diet during the cholera?”
Purke: “Of course.”
Piefke: “How?”
Pufke: “First thing in the morning grab your head and give yourself a slap on the face, so that you’re not afraid; then as a precaution slap all the members of your family. Then have a cup of coffee with three rolls. Then a dose of quinine. An hour later a fluffy pastry with Limoni and half a beer; then a Dover’s Powder. At 11am have goulash with dumplings with twenty drops of laudanum on top and so on until evening. To protect yourself from chills, have yourself warmed up by your creditors and wear a flannel bandage around your torso and a hot-water bottle.”
Piefke: “I know a better way.”
Pufke: “And?”
Piefke: “You have to deal with cholera like you do with paying debts.”
Pufke: “What does that mean?”
Piefke: “Don’t think about it at all!”
Piefke: “Tell me, dear Pufke, do you know which is the best servant in all of Vienna right now?”
Pufke: “No, which one?”
Piefke: “Cholera.”
Pufke: “Cholera? How so?”
Piefke: “Well, it stays around even if you keep treating it badly.”
Same image a week later for this text:
Piefke: “If it’s true that copper makes the best prevention against cholera: then who is the most protected?”
Pufke: “How can you ask? Obviously the publisher of our broadsheets; for they soak up almost entirely copper money.”
Sic Transit Pestilentia 