Cockroaches: From Belief Narratives to the Contemporary Visual Practice of Catherine Chalmers, or How Cockroaches Have Survived on Earth for More than 320 Million Years

This article, developed on the meeting point of ethnozoology and critical animal studies, is an overview of the role of cockroaches (of which there are around 3500 species) in customs and beliefs of certain ethno-traditions, with a special emphasis on Russian and Croatian, i.e. South Slavic, ethno-traditions in terms of context. In the first part of the paper, I have chosen to present the two aforementioned Slavic examples, considering that they are contradictory in the ethics of their relationship towards cockroaches: while cockroaches, particularly the black ones, were respected in Russian ethno-tradition, almost as pets that bring happiness and prosperity to a household (we could call them pet amulets of sorts) (cf. Gura 2005), they were treated merely as pests in Croatian ethno-tradition, as is the case today. In the second part of the paper, I supplement the aforementioned folklorist and ethnologic perspective (zoofolkloristics and ethnozoology) with animal studies. This includes the question of animal rights from a contemporary perspective, whereby I concentrate on aggressive insecticides and exterminators of cockroaches today, as well as on the research of the advertising strategies that contain militant killing performatives (e.g. Raid commercials). I conclude with the discussion on the ethic and aesthetic in the visual art of Catherine Chalmers, who kills cockroaches in the name of art, for the purposes of some of her works, albeit simultaneously demonstrating that even the “lowly” cockroach can be a subject of so-called high art.