«During the time when we were laughing, we forgot about threat of death...». Satire, humour, laughter are on pages of periodicals

Article is devoted to an insufficiently studied theme of humorous culture during the Great Patriotic war. Sources of studying of such phenomena of culture as the satire and humour are products publicistic schedules and the front figures published in the central and front newspapers. Journalists understood that than closer to front there were readers, and emotional tone and materials of the newspaper should be especially alive. Carrying out tasks of propagation, artists preferred «malicious humour». Posters and caricatures caused hatred and desire to take vengeance on the enemy. But a part of the images published in newspapers in 1941-1945 caused a smile and lyrical moods helping to keep humanism and to resist to horrors of war. The author of article judges a wide range of opportunities of journalists and artists to carry out propaganda tasks and simultaneously to work on the future. Art of the period of the Great Patriotic war supported ethical standards of the human person and a society.