The Ukrainian dove. A metaphor of peace and war in political cartoons

Abstract

This article investigates the evolving symbolism of the white dove—a universal emblem of peace—within contemporary political cartoons portraying Viktor Orban, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Drawing on visual rhetoric, semiotics, and theories of political discourse (Gombrich 1985, Burke 1966, Bourdieu 1991), the study explores how cartoonists deploy multimodal metaphors to expose the contradictions between declarations of peace and the exercise of authoritarian power. By tracing the metamorphosis of the dove motif from World War II propaganda to twenty-first-century satire, the analysis reveals its inversion into a symbol of hypocrisy, performative diplomacy, and ideological manipulation. The findings suggest that the degradation of the peace symbol reflects a broader moral and representational crisis in global politics, in which “peace” functions less as an ethical value than as a rhetorical commodity within populist and illiberal political narratives.