Guignol, journal hebdomadaire humoristique and Lyon’s identity in the 20th century: perspectives on a reciprocal construction
Abstract
The war had just begun in 1914 when Victor Lorge, an independent printer and trade union leader, gave birth to Guignol, journal hebdomadaire humoristique. For 58 years, this weekly illustrated satirical journal would be the symbol of Lyon’s identity.
Not only was Guignol a transposition of France’s 2nd city’s puppet theater tradition, the famous théâtre de Guignol. But it also quickly became the incarnation of lyonnitude, an original form of local identity forged through the violence of the 19th century. Focusing its articles and caricatures on Lyon, the magazine played a major part in local politics, being one of the main supporters of the immovable mayor Edouard Herriot. With the use of iconic puppet characters as Guignol or Gnafron, and articles written in a fanciful language intending to replicate the idioms spoken by Lyon’s working class, it also became a conservatory of the disappearing local culture as well as a laboratory of a new form of local humor.
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