The article presents an analysis and interpretation of the satirical illustrations published in the Harbin newspaper Novaya Zhizn on the events connected with the pneumonic plague epidemic in Harbin (1910–1911). Bureaucracy and the ineffectiveness of a number of medical measures were subject to criticism. The satire in Novaya Zhizn was mainly aimed at finding those guilty for the epidemic. In the winter of 1910–1911, the board of the Chinese Eastern Railway sent a group of epidemiologists to Harbin