In the article, a comprehensive comparative analysis of the satirical prose of W. Thackeray and I. Franko, focusing on socio-political themes, is carried out for the first time in Ukrainian literary studies, significantly expanding our understanding of the interaction between the works of these artists. The authors systematize theoretical concepts about satire as a literary genre and concentrate on the phenomenon of sociopolitical satire. The research identifies and explores objects of satirical representation in the works of the Ukrainian and British writers. In his works, William Makepeace Thackeray subjected contemporary society to scathing criticism, following the path of truth and nature, employing irony and grotesque to expose various moral and ethical flaws of its representatives, such as feudal privileges of the nobility, subservience to titles, hypocrisy, vanity, and decadence. According to A.M. Khalimonchuk’s calculations, Ivan Franko’s satirical legacy comprises over 30 satirical short stories and sketches, six satirical poems, three comedies, and several dozens of satirical poems. In addition to translating the works of prominent satirists from around the world into Ukrainian, Ivan Franko’s archive contains numerous unfinished satirical works from various periods of his literary career. Ivan Franko’s literary contributions played an equally significant role in the development of Ukrainian national satire as William Thackeray’s works did for British and European satire as a whole. In the article the poetic modes used to create satirical phenomena in Thackeray’s and Franko’s prose are analysed. The hypothesis regarding the possibility of indirect contact-genetic relationships between the works of these authors is put forward.