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A national personification is an anthropomorphization of a nation or its people; it can appear in both editorial cartoons and propaganda.
Some early personifications in the Western world tended to be national manifestations of the majestic wisdom and war goddess Minerva/Athena, and often took the Latin name of the ancient Roman province. Examples of this type include Britannia, Germania, Hibernia, Helvetia and Polonia. Representations of the citizenry of a nation -- rather than of the nation itself -- are Deutscher Michel and John Bull.[1]
A national personification is not the same as a national animal, although in some cartoons the national animal rather than the human personification is used to represent a country.
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Personifications by country or territory
Pictures
 Britannia arm-in-arm with Uncle Sam symbolizes the British-American alliance in World War I. |
 Bharat Mata, the personification of India as a mother goddess. |
 Eugène Delacroix, Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1827) |
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 1914 poster showing Marianne, Mother Russia and Britannia. |
 French political cartoon from the late 1890s. |
 Norway, Denmark and Sweden joining hands in a 19th Century poster |
 Statue of Mother Svea representing Sweden on a building in Stockholm. |
 World War I recruiting poster featuring John Bull. |
 Brazilian Constitutionalist Revolution recruiting poster, showing a Bandeirante with the dictator of Brazil, Getúlio Vargas, in his hand. |
 Zé Povinho, caricature of a Portuguese working class man of the 19th century |
 In this 1806 French print, the woman with the Menorah represents the Jews being emancipated by Napoleon Bonaparte |
 James Gillray's cartoon on the 1803 Peace of Amiens, features a fat and non-marital Britannia kissing "Citizen François", a perosnifiaction of Revolutionary France never used by the French themselves |
 Revolutionary Romania. Painting by C. D. Rosenthal, made in Paris exile in the early 1850's |
 Romania Breaking off Her Chains on the Field of Liberty. also by C. D. Rosenthal |
 A later depiction of Romania as a woman in a World War I French caricature |
 The figures in this late 18th century painting by Shiba Kōkan represent Japan, China, and the West. |
 Columbia wearing a warship as her bonnet, bearing the words "World Power", in the wake of Spanish-American War (cover of "Puck", April 6, 1901.) |
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 Mother Canada statue in the WWI Vimy Memorial |
 Mother Motherland, pesonification of the Soviet Union, at a WWII war memorial in Volgograd (the former Stalingrad) |
 Polonia (Poland), by Jan Matejko, painted after the failure of the 1863 January Uprising |
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See also
- Afghanis-tan
- Hetalia Axis Powers
- National emblem for other metaphors for nations
References
- ^ Eric Hobsbawm, "Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914," in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 263-307.
- ^ In addition to these, a German cartoon of 1904 shows Emperor William II. representing Germany, in company with John Bull and Marianne - see image in Entente Cordiale page
External links
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