Vello Agori

[1][2][3] He came from an Orthodox family and was baptized Grigori, but among the children he was called Gori, which was the origin of his future pseudonym as a cartoonist.

However, it ceased publication after a year because the bookseller and publisher Jakob Ploompuu first purchased Sipelgas and then acquired its editors and owners.

"[7] One of the best-known drawings in Knock-out, "Demokraatia kaks palet" (The Two Faces of Democracy), has been highlighted by both Ilmar Reiman [et] and Romulus Tiitus [et].

The drawing shows a poor woman with two children looking at wealthy people drinking wine, and she says "Darling, I don't have much money to buy acetic acid" (Kuld mul pole niigi palju raha, et äädikahapet võiksin osta).

Tiitus says that if Gori had written the caption to say 'I don't have money to buy bread' the reader would have quickly forgotten this caricature because life offered many such contrasts.

In 1941, the Soviet occupation authorities arrested Gori, but they released him on the condition that he would criticize private traders ("speculators") and slackers in his published cartoons, and he was also forced to draw political cartoons against Estonian independence and politicians, which were published in Rahva Hääl and Sirp ja Vasar.

In September 1941, Gori was arrested for mocking the German people and the Führer, and he was sentenced to one year in the Central Prison,[6] where his cellmate was his 15-year-old son Olev, who had written an application to join the Komsomol.

This is how the Germans forced Gori to draw cartoons against Joseph Stalin and the USSR, which were published in the newspaper Eesti Sõna [et].

Two weeks later, after the re-occupation of Estonia by the USSR, Gori was summoned to the NKVD headquarters on Pagar Street for interrogation.

[2] Gori was buried on October 13, 1944, at Aleksander Nevski Cemetery in Tallinn, where speeches were made by Jaan Jensen [et], Adamson-Eric, and Konstantin Osvet at his funeral.

[10] Already at Pärnu High School [et], Gori had good drawing skills, and once a week he published a humorous magazine in which he caricatured teachers.

During the First World War, the artist's characteristic pictorial satire developed, penetrating all aspects of social life.

[12] Along with Karl August Hindrey and Otto Krusten, Gori was the most popular caricaturist of his time, managing to create up to 40,000 drawings altogether.

"Tõmbenumbrid" (Attractions), Waba Maa March 18, 1936
"Metaformoos" (The Metaphormosis), Waba Maa , March 25, 1936