Octobriana

Octobriana is a wonderful hoax created by a Czech scriptwriter named Petr Sadecky. Sadecky came to British publisher Tom Stacey Ltd with a fantasy tale of an underground hippy movement behind the iron curtain in the 1960's. The movement was known as the Progressive Political Pornography Group ( PPP). The PPP produced an equally underground publication called MTSYRY which was distributed among its members.. Being true hippies they also got drunk, spoke out against the Soviet authorities, had orgies and created comics strips about OCTOBRIANA.

cover of OCTOBRIANA AND THE RUSSIAN UNDERGROUND plus wraparound showing Petr Sadecky

Octobriana is a sort of Russian Wonder Woman. She is intended to be a warrior fighting for true communism as opposed to that which existed in Russia. Tom Stacey lapped this up and published OCTOBRIANA AND THE RUSSIAN UNDERGROUND in 1971.

The book drew some scepticism but also enough interest to have an article written about it in the Sunday supplements. Among those who heard about PPP and Octobriana was one Bryan Talbot.

In actual fact there was no PPP. Sadecky (1943-1991) had originally created Octobriana as an adventure strip starring a character called Amazona, whose mission was to lead savages in their fight against civilization. The drawing was done by an experienced illustrator named Bohumil Konecny (1918-1990). Cover designs were done by a well known painter named Zdenek Burian (1905-1981).

In 1967 Sadecky emigrated and took most of the art work for Amazona with him, presumably without the permission of the artists. that was when the hoax really started. He painted a red star on Amazona's forehead and renamed her Octobriana. Then he took his story to Tom Stacey.

The hoax was discovered though some are still not entirely sure that it is a hoax (that's the problem with secret societies - they can be too secret to disprove their existence). But for those who read the book (and those who heard about Octobriana second hand), the truth of Sadecky's claims wouldn't be questioned for years.

But the hoax produced an interesting situation. Sadecky said that the PPP didn't believe in private ownership of ideas so Octobriana was public domain and as such, anyone was free to use her. The original artists claims have never been fully substantiated.

As a result of this Octobrian is one of the few characters that everyone is free to draw without fear of prosecution. She can be whatever you want her to be so get drawing.

Octobriana

Other Octobriana's

Trina Robbins

Bryan Talbot

Octobriana film