Soviet phraseology
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Soviet phraseology, or Sovietisms, i.e. the
The topic of this article is not limited to the Russian language, since this phraseology also permeated regional languages in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Russian was the official language of inter-nationality communication in the Soviet Union, and was declared official language of the state in 1990,[1] therefore it was the major source of Soviet phraseology.
Taxonomy
The following main types of Sovietism coinage may be recognized:[2]
- avoska, oranges have been thrown out down on the corner!" — it was not that someone jettisoned oranges; rather a makeshift stallwas set up in the street to sell oranges.
- Intentional kombed, agitprop, etc.
- Colloquial word coinage: khrushchovka, psikhushka.
- Stylistic cliches: "forever alive" (about Vladimir Lenin), "laboring intelligentsia", to distinguish "good" intelligentsia from "bad" intelligentsia of the past, etc.
- Political and ideological slogans Soviet people saw everyday everywhere. Often they were exploited in Russian political jokes. For example, the formula "The Partyis Intelligence, Honor, and Conscience of our Epoch" was mathematically transformed into "Intelligence is party minus honor minus conscience of our epoch."
- Quite a few pejorative terms were standardized for numerous .
Beginnings
An initial surge of intentional word coinage appeared immediately after the
(and in fact the latter terms were restored in 1946).Colloquial political humor
Ben Lewis wrote in his essay,[3] book,[4] and film[5] (all titled Hammer & Tickle) that "Communism was a humour-producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations. There were jokes under fascism and the Nazis too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh-a-minute reality like communism."
Soviet people coined irreverent definitions for their leaders. "Mineralny sekretar" was a nickname for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (due to his anti-alcohol campaign). "Kukuruznik" (from kukuruza, maize) referred to Nikita Khrushchev (because of his botched introduction of maize from the United States).
See also
- Newspeak
- New Soviet names
- Homo Sovieticus
- Thought reform in the People's Republic of China
- LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii, a book that studies the way that Nazi propaganda altered the German language
References
- ^ "ЗАКОН СССР ОТ 24.04.1990 О ЯЗЫКАХ НАРОДОВ СССР" Archived 2016-05-08 at the Wayback Machine (the 1990 USSR Law about the Languages of the USSR) (in Russian)
- ^ V. M. Mokiyenko, T.G. Nikitina, "Vocabulary of the Sovdepiya Language", St. Petersburg, Folio-Press, 1998, 704 pp. (В. М. Мокиенко, Т. Г. Никитина. Толковый словарь языка Совдепии. СПб.: Фолио-Пресс, 1998. - 704 с.) (in Russian)
- ^ "Hammer & tickle", Prospect Magazine, May 2006, essay by Ben Lewis on jokes in Communist countries
- ISBN 0-297-85354-6 (a review online)
- IMDb
Further reading
- "Soviet Language", BBC Russian Service, October 11, 2005 (in Russian)