Vladimir Kadulin (Mitritch) (1888–1957)

Constantinople Occupation — World War I Aftermath, 1923

An original 1923 watercolor and ink caricature by Vladimir Kadulin (1888–1957), a leading Russian émigré caricaturist of the post-Revolutionary period, signed under his Constantinople exhibition pseudonym Mitritch.

Trained at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Kiev Art School, Kadulin became a central visual voice of the Russian émigré community in Istanbul, producing sharp political satire during the Allied occupation of the city following World War I. The work depicts four caricatured military figures in distinct uniforms advancing through a bomb-scarred nocturnal cityscape defined by domes and minarets, exposing the instability and theatricality of post-imperial power.

Closely related compositions by Kadulin from this Constantinople period—including near-variant examples—have been exhibited in institutional contexts such as the Occupied City / Meşgul Şehir exhibition at the Istanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, situating this signed, dated work within a documented and studied body of émigré political art.