Contest
of cartoons
"Native Gods smiling"
To the light origins of native culture
What can be better than the freedom
of speech?
Diogenes
The contest we propose is an act of our goodwill, and its aim is to attain better interethnic and inter-religious understanding.
A dozen vulgar drawings of mediocre quality ignited a wave of madness
in many countries of the World indicating the ideological deadlock.
And what we need is to find a way out of it. Therefore, we need fresh
and non-standard decisions.
An average sane man is filled with indignation reading news about notorious
"cartoon scandal". Indignation at extravagant reaction of
religious fanatics. Indignation at cartoonists' tactlessness. Indignation
at obvious gambling of different sorts of provocateurs trying to gain
profit out of this fuss. Indignation at evident absurdness of the pretext
for such a serious tension and aggression.
We'd like to propose our help at least to Europeans to overcome cultural
shock, to get back confidence and joy of life, and to recollect that
the one laughs best who 1) laughs last; 2) can laugh at himself.
We want to propose a reason for a good laugh without insulting religious,
spiritual and cultural values of other nations.
Let's first give the proper estimation to the events we observing nowadays.
For this purpose it is necessary to pay attention to both inter-religious
and interethnic difference in approaches to humour. For one nation considers
jokes and humour to be an inseparable part of its life that cuts a long
road shorter, relieves pain, turns quarrel into a joke, makes people
to forget burdens of life making it easier: laugh and the whole world
will laugh with you!
Another nation consider laugh and smile to mean humiliation and mockery
that can cause hostility, searching of enemies and murdering people.
For people who appreciate good humour hostility is a deplorable fact
that depriving them of the right to commit an error. It is quite possible
that cartoonist wanted to make somebody think with the help of benevolent
smile. But he missed and what is still worse - he hit the wrong target.
Let us abandon any efforts to alter somebody else's culture. Let's turn to each other, let's friendly smile and laugh together following the best traditions of our glorious past that still exerts influence upon us.
Let us start the Marathon of Humour. The topic of this Marathon will
be our native, Pagan religious traditions and mythology of European
nations. The first round is the Contest of friendly cartoons, comicses
and well-meant caricatures of pagan Gods and Heroes. The Cartoon Contest
will be judged by Jury consisting of pagans themselves. And we the Pagans
declare that participation in the contest is free for any artist and
doesn't depend on religion, race, age, and etc.
Pagan Gods are good judges of friendly smile and laughing, they can
laugh and like to laugh. Laugh in paganism is a sacred and clearing
action. It can be manifestation of divine revelation, just like sacred
texts. Paganism is the first source of European civilization, source
of inspiration for poets and artists, scientists and statesmen. The
Old Pagan Gods can be portrayed in different images: people, animals,
fantastic creatures. They understand jokes; they can laugh together
with people at humorous drawings of mythological stories. They often
laugh at people and at each other. Nevertheless, if they are insulted
- they can defend themselves without any mediators.
However, we ask the Contest participants to bear in mind that the aim
of this action is to lessen the tension and hostility among people of
different religions, convictions and nations! That is why the Contest
Jury will reject any cartoons that form "enemy image", that
don't contain any sense or good humour, or ones of a low artistic value.
Contest conditions:
1. Main characters of the cartoons may be the Pagan Gods and Heroes of European nations: Slavonic, Scandinavian, Greek, Roman and other Pagan Gods and Heroes, and also people (including famous politicians of past and today), animals, fantastic creatures and etc.;
2. To avoid any inter-religious conflict it is strictly prohibited to take as cartoon characters any heroes, characters or symbols of any of so called "world religions";
3. The cartoon characters in general must correspond to mythology and traditional images of the pagan religious characters;
4. The cartoons must be witty and benevolent even if they are hinting of contemporary serious problems and shortages;
5. We welcome cartoons on the ancient, modern history and reflecting contemporary life if they do not come into contradiction with above-mentioned Contest conditions;
6. Authors may send their works to the jury by E-mail or by mail (on diskettes) by the fixed time, and specify the technique of the original drawing and its original size. If the author thinks that it is necessary to explain his drawing and to give it any cultural context, he can send to the jury an appendix to his drawing (text up to 3000 symbols) that will be published together with it.
7. The artists-participants give the jury the right to publish all contest materials indicating real names or nicknames of the authors (the latter can be done by authors' wish);
8. The artists-participants possess the copyright and the right for independent publishing of their drawings;
9. The artists-participants pledge an obligation to preserve copyrights of the third persons. Otherwise, the contest drawing will be removed from the contest at any stage.
The contest will be held in three nominations:
1. Cartoon (a drawing with attached text in any language including translation in English).
2. Caricatures (grotesque, friendly jests).
3. Comicses (a number of drawings in success, animated presentation, but not an animated cartoon film).
Contest stages:
1 March - 31 March 2006. Consultations and discussing of contest topics, spreading the information of the contest.
1 April - 31 May 2006. Reception and selection of the drawings by the Contest Jury.
1 - 19 June 2006. Work of the Contest Jury. Discussing the drawings in Internet.
20 June 2006. The Jury names the winners.
10 July 2006. Awarding the winners.
In any nomination, there are three main awards and the award of audience sympathy (by the results of Internet poll). There may be additional awards granted by mass media and sponsors of the Contest.
We wish you good luck and success in your creative work. We hope that
the characters of your cartoons will share their creative force with
you, and you'll hear the rustling of Muses' wings and joyful neighing
of Pegasus laughing at your most brilliant joke.
Lubomir (Dionys Georgis), volhv of Native Faith Community "Slavya" (Moscow), Co-chairman of Circle of Pagan Tradition http://slavya.ru
Yggelg (Dmitry Gavrilov), volhv of Bear' Circle(Moscow), Co-chairman of Circle of Pagan Tradition, http://triglav.ru
Ratibor (Vadiv Vinnik), cudesnik Jitomir Pagan Community "Great Fire" (Ukraine), Co-chairman of Circle of Pagan Tradition, http://www.zt.ukrtel.net/greatfire
Фенрир, Eril of Danish-Norwegian Koven "Dark Flame of Lokhi", Co-chairman of Circle of Pagan Tradition