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Beware of the perils of translation, according to Larry Johnson. Putin’s “with nuance” response to the US cease-fire proposal is actually referring to a crude and disgusting Russian joke.
https://sonar21.com/regarding-a-ceasefire-putin-says-it-is-about-nuance/
Larry’s analysis makes sense to me, but he relies partly on AI, which is always suspect in my view. Would be interesting to hear what our Tatyana thinks!
Tatyana already has done so here.
Too much talk about whether Putin had the rude joke in his mind or not… When Medvedev is downright rude
https://pikabu.ru/story/zheleznyiy_dimon_vyirazhaetsya_dimplomaticheski_12491415This was brought to Picabu and people express extreme surprise with the Russian equivalent of the “fucking hell”
Of course, this is a great opportunity for Russians to practice their humor, like the top and most upvoted comment: “Here’s who the real presidential press secretary is.”
Among the discussion there’s an explanation: “In Russia there are three official persons who are responsible for their bazaar (*rhetoric) to the whole world – these are Uncle Vova, Peskov and someone else. I watched an interview with Tolstoy in France (*Russian ambassador), there was a local scribbler (*derogatory for a journalist) who wanted to take him on a bluff – like “why the fuck is Dimon so brazenly saying everyone to fuck off?”. To which he was answered – we have three official persons in Russia, and the rest can *bazaar whatever they want.
Below in the discussion there’s an amendment that the three state officials whose words are interpreted as the state’s position are Putin, Lavrov and the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, now it is Maria Zakharova. I’d also add that these words should also be expressed on the official information resources, which do not include social networks.
Also, in the discussion about Medvedev, the following assumption is made:
“So for a long time there has been a position of “jester” close to the tsar. Not the one who is a buffoon and makes children laugh, but the one who can say ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING he wants, TO WHOMEVER HE WANTS and in any form. Even if it’s a king, or even the Pope himself – jester doesn’t give a shit. It’s very convenient when you (*the tsar) want to fuck someone, but officially you can’t, because of the consequences. And so, it seems, you just raise an eyebrow, and an eloquent kind person is broadcasting: your British, some kind of assholes, are you faggots or something? And it is a sin to feel offended*, and everything is clear to everyone))
(*jester, or fool, in Russia is блаженный, шут, дурак. Popular believe is they’re ‘God’s people’ or sort of. Anyway, good christians should be kind and tolerant towards mentally ill people.)Other commenters agree and bring this to better illustrate.
https://youtu.be/_dwGhpeYlPE
A stand-up comedy, a white guy hires a black guy to pronounce the n-word towards other black guys, because the white guy himself can’t say the n-word with impunity.Ah, nearly forgot to say Thank you, Neil, for bringing the link!
From there I learned how to express the rude meaning in a (I believe) descriptive way. I struggled to choose mild wording when translating the joke, but failed, so decided to write it as it is, folk language, apologizing multiply for what I have to translate.
I’d never guessed to use ‘to insert himself into’. For me it sounds like someone walking into a house or a cave, the whole man, not a part of a body.Belated thanks for your response, Tatyana. I think the explanation you gave (linked by ET above, and that I inexplicably missed – perhaps I am getting too old) is more plausible than Larry J’s and confirms my suspicion of AI.
I didn’t get very far trying to follow the pikabu link you gave (just shows how bad my Russian is, I suppose). I did try searching for “Uncle Vova” and found this patriotic video:
State Duma Deputy Anna Kuvychko with a group of cadets from Volgograd
which reminded me strongly of this disgusting video (the music is very similar, not the disgust):
Times of Israel report on the video, and the outrage it created
The music is quite stirring in both cases, but I just don’t like anything militaristic. I have to concede that Russian women are indeed very beautiful, but their divorce statistics are scarier than the guns and rockets in the video 🙂
Neil, the song Uncle Vova says something completely different, than that about Gaza.
It describes how many wars are happening on earth now, and that children (these are cadet students) preserve the memory of their heroic ancestors who stood against Nazism in World War II, and that they want peace in our country, and that they are patriotic and ready to defend the country.
However, with all the sincerity of the verse, the chorus is of course built to, as we say, lick Putin’s ass. It says “if the Commander-in-Chief calls us to the last battle, then, Uncle Vova, we are with you”.This is simply terrible from all points of view, both humanistically, and artistically, and especially the hint at a personality cult or whatever the author was trying to convey.
Neil, there are 140 million of us, and people are different. There are those who want to lick asses, there are those who hate Putin, but the majority have a completely sensible attitude towards the president – this is the person who was elected to do the job, for the benefit of the Russian Federation, and this person is doing a good job, at least better than anyone we had before.
The commentator used Uncle Vova sarcastically. Moreover, listening to bloggers you can come across other sarcastic insertions, for example calling Putin светлоликий *bright-faced (leader) – a reference to some old cult of personality.
You may come across another kind of irony, a reference to Tolkien, because the opposing side often bestows upon us the nicknames Mordor and Orcs.
So a Russian blogger may greet his listeners with “Hello, orcs, how are you?”
Or, “I’m here with the latest Mordor news”
I often come across Putin being referred to as “the darkest” *like the Dark Lord, but the Darkest 🙂
In some posts I came across the caption “Орда – родная, злобная, твоя” *The Horde – darling, evil, yours”We are at war, Neil.
Our relatives are being taken to the front. We fear for our children. Every night drones fly in and attack civilians. Horrible terrorist attacks happen, like in Crocus City Hall. In many Western countries our ethnicity is discriminated against, and in Ukraine we are simply exterminated. Here in Russia we are under great pressure of wartime. The opportunity to laugh is one of the valves that prevents us from completely going crazy from what is happening around us.I’ll add a little more.
Our information space is filled with propaganda, it seems to me that only the lazy do not make propaganda now. Even the church! Which causes a feeling of absurdity, and this leads to ironic assessments of such activities.Our country has gone through about 70 years of atheism. The overwhelming majority of the population treats the Orthodox religion as simply a cultural traditional heritage. The same is true for Muslim peoples, with whom we have lived in one country for a very long time. For example, the Tatars. History goes back far to Ivan the Terrible, when we were united into one state.
Re. irony: today I met a person on Picabu who described his experience like this:
“I decided to resume work on my dissertation, and I needed a specific book in English. There were two options: order it for $175 on the godless Anglo-Saxon Amazon, or take it from our Orthodox Russian State Library.”
So if you come across something like this, be sure that there is irony here 🙂Another example with a reference to the times of Ivan the Terrible is the word Гойда */Goyda/ an interjection with a call to immediate action, something like Hooray! & Let’s go! combined. This is an ancient cry of the oprichniks, the servants of the tsar who terrorized the population when the tsar tried to establish autocracy in the country. This word was used during a public speech by some artist. And now it has become a symbol of stupid propaganda, it is used under propaganda materials to express that you see what they are doing, like saying amen after your interlocutor has prayed 🙂
In general, if it seems to you that there could be irony or sarcasm in this or that Russian text, then most likely it is.hah 🙂 just heard this:
“Evil evening, my dear accomplices in sowing chaos, hatred, intolerance, disgust, indifference, abomination and all the similar and different things, that our Asian hordes of mangy Bolshevik Cossacks are famous for”Tatyana, here you talked about how young people are more focused on pressing issues, and real practical goals.
Well, here’s a 15-minute video on young people making their presence felt, thanks to some not-very-bright police who thought it might be a good idea to break down the door of a Quaker Meeting House of all places! (BTW I am a Quaker myself, as I’ve mentioned here before)
