Image:Mice-burying-the-cat.jpg

English: "The Mice are burying the Cat". An 18th-century Russian lubok print with a very popular plot, that of the mice burying the cat. It has been commonly thought this plot is a caricature of Peter the Great's burial, authored by the opponents of his innovations. (Indeed, the caption above the Cat says, "The Cat of Kazan, the Mind of Astrakhan, the Wisdom of Siberia" -- which itself is a parody of the title of Russian Czars). However, it has been claimed by modern researchers that this is simply a representation of carnivaluesque inversion, "turning the world upside down". The original picture may have been drawn in the late 17th - early 18th century; the actual print was purhcased in 1766 and is thought to have been recently printed at the time.