Josef Rotter (fl. 1902–14) was a teacher, illustrator, and editorial cartoonist of German or Austrian origin, most noted for his contribution to the Molla Nasreddin magazine.

Rotter's date and place of birth are not known. The best, yet far from precise, indication regarding his birthdate is a 1902 group photo at one of Rotter's workplaces, showing a man in his midthirthies to midfifthies^[1] with an obvious resemblance to a caricature portrait of Rotter in the Jalil Mammadguluzadeh Encyclopedia.^[2]

Rotter has been variously described as German,^[3] German-born,^[4] ethnic German,^[5] and Austrian, without German necessarily referring to the German Empire, and with the term Austrian applied to Rotter in a meticulous, largely ethnographic work by Karl August Fischer [de].^[6]

Rotter is said to have studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts,^[7] but his name does not appear in the institution's exhaustively digitized 1809–1935 student matriculation books.^[8]

In 1902 Rotter accepted an invitation to teach at the newly founded Tbilisi Secondary School of Painting and Sculpture, the immediate precursor of the Georgian Academy of Fine Arts.^[9] The invitation was issued by Oskar Schmerling, a second generation Caucasian German artist and director of the school, with whom Rotter would remain in close contact for years—the two men not only teaching at the same institution, but also traveling together, and contributing to many of the same magazines.^[10]

From 1906 to 1914 Rotter engaged in a remarkably intense and multicultural activity, creating over twenty three hundred illustrations for nine periodicals, all based in Tbilisi but aiming at four linguistic groups over and beyond South Caucasia: the Armenian Hasker [hy] and Khatabala, the Azeri Molla Nasreddin, the Georgian Eshmakis matrakhi [ka], Nakaduli [ka], Nishaduri [ka], Shuamavali [ka], Tsnobis purtseli [ka], and the German Kaukasische Post.^[11] Seven of these publications were launched in the wake of the 1905 Russian Revolution,^[12] all took advantage of the subsequent relaxation of censorship,^[13] and five were satirical magazines with pioneering content.^[14]

Over eleven hundred of Rotter’s illustrations were published in Molla Nasreddin. Each issue of this weekly magazine, whose publication experienced multiple interruptions, had a close to eight-page editorial content, including four pages devoted to social or political cartoons. About a third of these fully illustrated pages in 1906–7, half in 1908–9, three-quarters in 1910–13, nine-tenths in 1914, and three-fifths over the entire 1906–14 period, were filled with Rotter’s work.^[15] So Rotter’s role is seen as essential. Cartoons were meant to widen the audience of the magazine, include the less educated, and cross linguistic barriers; and indeed, Molla Nasreddin enjoyed a large circulation, with numerous schools and coffeehouses among its subscribers, and a geographic reach suggesting a far from exclusively Azeri readership.^[16] So again Rotter’s role is seen as pivotal, but this time from a more qualitative point of view and in tandem with Schmerling, the publication’s other prominent illustrator. Finally, considering the impact of Molla Nasreddin as whole, or an aggregate of words and images, the magazine stands out as a successful proponent of progressive ideas in connection with the Muslim world, a model or reference point for the Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, Iranian, and Tatar press, and a significant force in the Persian Constitutional Revolution.^[17]

In the same period, Rotter created illustrations for Abbas Ghayebzadeh [az]'s Azeri translation of Ferdowsi's Rostam and Sohrab.^[18]

Rotter’s collaboration with Tbilisi based periodicals came to a sudden end in the summer of 1914, shortly before the onset of World War I.^[19] Less than conclusive indications that Rotter survived the war are the first publications of some of his work in the 1920s and 1930s, in two narratives of Dietrich von Berne’s exploits, a selection of Friedrich von Schiller's poems, and an album dealing with Armenian legends and folk tales.^[20] The date and place of Rotter’s death are not known.

• Khatabala, Oct. 8, 1911, no. 41, p. 489
• Khatabala, Dec. 3, 1911, no. 49, p. 588
• Khatabala, June 2, 1912, no. 21, p. 249
• Molla Nasreddin, Jan. 10, 1910, no. 2, pp. 4–5
• Molla Nasreddin, Nov. 13, 1910, no. 36, p. 8
• Molla Nasreddin, May 15, 1911, no. 18, p. 5