Stakhanovite

Another Russian loanword and a Soviet term for a hard worker and overachiever, stakhanovite (стахановец) takes its name from Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov (Алексей Григорьевич Стаханов), Soviet Hero of Labor, and the biggest wheel in the Soviet industrial propaganda machine.

In the dark Soviet year of 1935, USSR was in the throes of a mighty industrialization process led by Joseph Stalin, who wanted to turn Russia into a great modern military and industrial power at any cost.  Since lack of proper management, planning and resources significantly hampered the “progress,” the Communist Party had to rely on the workers’ heroism to compensate for their strategic shortcomings.

Soviet Medal for Labor Valour

When Aleksei Stakhanov mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours – 14 times his quota – CPSU skillfully used him as a propaganda maneuver in their “Stakhanovite Campaign” which quickly span across other production areas with records being set in the automobile, textile, timber, railroad, agriculture and other industries.  Compensated with bonuses and glory for its heroes, “Stakhanovite Movement” was promoted as a new stage in socialist reconstruction of national economy.  On November 14-17, 1935 the first All-Union Stakhanovite Conference took place at the Moscow Kremlin, where the following famous statement was made: “Life has become better, Comrades! Life is more fun these days!”  Made at the time of Stalin’s Great Purges, this declaration reflected the absurdity and horror of the self-destructive regime run by a power-lusting, paranoid, vindictive and criminal leader.

Stakhanov and other exemplary workers were glorified in the press, literature and film.  The records set by stakhanovites led to further increases in work quotas.  According to the Soviet state media (a highly unreliable source), industrial labor productivity increased by 82% during the 1933-1937 5-year plan.  Not a novel concept in itself, Stakhanovism became known worldwide as a highly successful Soviet propaganda campaign.

Stakhanovite term still has its use in the Russian language and refers (not without irony) to a hard-working over-zealous individual, a national rarity at best.

Ushanka

When I was little, my mom made me wear a succession of deeply uncool hats.  Every winter, I sported what seemed to be a fashion faux pas to my peers.  In kindergarten, it was a pink and grey knit shapka (Russian for “hat”) with large elephant ears that my mom made herself.  Upon reflection, it probably gave me quite an alternative and edgy look at the time.

In school, I wore a black rabbit fur ushanka, which I considered pedestrian in comparison to fancy winter hats adorned with pompoms and ribbons.  In retrospect, ushanka made me look like the coolest kid in my class.

One’s sense of style truly does develop overtime…  And although elephant ears might better be left to the kindergarten days, I have no reservations when it comes to wearing my ushanka hat.

Ushanka (ушанка) is known in the world as the ultimate Russian hat.  Literally, ushanka means “ear hat” and is derived from ushi (уши), “ears” in Russian.  It is a fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the cap, or tied at the chin to protect the ears, jaw and chin from the cold.  According to Wikipedia, the hat’s dense fur also provides some protection against blunt impacts to the head.  This, of course, can’t hurt in Russia.  Say somehow you got yourself involved in an alcohol-fueled tussle with some locals at a bar – ushanka could come in handy against an unfriendly blow to your head.  Or say you are walking ice-covered streets at an energetic pace.  Since ice salting is not widely practiced in Russia (why be bothered with such trivial things?), you will most likely trip.  Ushanka could help you avoid a concussion.

You can see how all around ushanka is a very versatile hat.  It was part of military uniforms in various Russian war campaigns.  During the Communist regime, ushanka became one of media emblems for Soviet Russia.  During his 1974 visit to Russia, President Gerald Ford wore an ushanka alongside Leonid Brezhnev – a complicit gesture interpreted as a sign of possible cold war détente.

Still distinctly Russian, ushanka made its way across the globe and is now popular worldwide.

Pavlova

Pavlova desert with strawberries and kiwis

A gastronomic addition to English, as aerial and delicate as the Russian ballerina who inspired it, Pavlova is a merengue-based desert with a crispy crust and a light filling, topped with fruit.  Australia and New Zealand have long been in a bitter dispute over the nationality and place of the cake’s creation.  Each country wants to claim the desert as its own.  Allegedly, Australian chef Bert Sachse whipped it up at the Hotel Esplanade kitchen in Perth in 1935.  When serving the pastry, he compared its lightness and refinement to those of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, who had toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926.  New  Zealand’s culinary detectives, however, trace the invention of Pavlova to the 1929 New Zealand.

Anna Pavlova in 1927

Whatever the origins of the recipe, the desert was named in honor of one of the world’s finest classical ballet dancers in history.  Anna Pavlovna (Matveevna) Pavlova (Анна Павловна (Матвеевна) Павлова) (1881-1931) was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev.  She became the first ballerina to tour around the world.  Her passion for ballet was unconditional – upon learning she had pneumonia and needed surgery that would end her dancing career, Anna Pavlova refused the operation, exclaiming, “If I can’t dance then I’d rather be dead!”  Three weeks later she died in the Hotel des Indes in the Hague, Netherlands.  According to an old ballet tradition, the ballet took place the next day with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where Anna would have danced.

Vodka

My favirite vodka: Imperia (Русский Стандарт)

One of my personal etymological and alcoholic favorites, Vodka (водка), is another Russian borrowing that was first recorded in English in 1801.  The drink, however, is many centuries older with the first “identifiable” vodka appearing in Poland in the 11th Century and in Russia in the late 14th Century.

The word vodka is a diminutive from the Slavic voda (вода), “water.”  The colorless liquid does look like water, but it was named so because such spirits were once – and in Russia, for instance, still are thought to be essential to life as water.  Scottish / Irish whiskey and Swedish aquavit also derive their names from the word “water.”

A kind of distilled liquor resembling what would later become defined by the Russian word vodka, was introduced to Russia in 1386 when the Genoese ambassadors gifted the aqua vitae (“the water of life”) to Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy.  The drink was distilled from the grape and was considered to be a concentrate, a “spirit” of wine (spiritus vini in Latin).  Hence the origin of the English word spirit and Russian word spirt to denote hard liquor.

Since 1430, the “bread wine” – as vodka was originally called in Russia – was distilled exclusively in the Grand Duchy of Moscow according to a special recipe by a monk named Isidore from the Chudov Monastery inside the Moscow Kremlin.  Until the 18th Century the drink had a relatively low alcohol content and was expensive.

Today vodka is one of the world’s most popular liquors.  It is distilled from fermented substances, such as grain or potatoes.  It is composed primarily from water and ethanol and contains 40% alcohol by volume.

There is one downside though, it is statistically proven that countries in the vodka belt – Eastern European and Nordic countries – have a higher mortality rate due to the consumption of this devilishly satisfying elixir.

Marathon – Greek vegetable?

Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians

During the battle of Marathon in the 490 BC Greece, Athenian herald Pheidippides, ran 240 kilometers in two days, but it was the final journey leg of 25 miles that killed him.  The Greek legendary figure was sent to Sparta from Athens to request help in battling the Persians who have invaded Greece through the town of Marathon.  The Spartans refused to oblige for vaguely politico-religious reasons, and Pheidippides raced to the Marathon battlefield to witness the end of the raging fight.  The Greeks have defeated the Persians, and Pheidippides ran 25 miles to Athens to announce the victory.  Having proclaimed Νενικήκαμεν! “We have won!” to the people of Athens, the heroic messenger collapsed and died from exhaustion.

New York City Marathon

Whether or not Pheidippides truly existed, his legend inspired the creation of Marathon, a long distance running race of 26 miles, as grueling as it is rewarding.  In 1896, marathon was the main event at the modern rebirth of the Olympic Games, recalling the ancient glory of Greece.  Pheidippides’ spirit, if around, is definitely in New York on this Sunday, November 7th, when the city seems to consist entirely of runners and running fans gathered here for the 41st ING New York City Marathon.  It is one collective adrenaline rush shared by all the 45 thousand race participants and their countless supporters.

Fennel

But what does the word marathon actually mean?  In contrast with the glorious myth behind it and the valiant sport it represents, marathon (Μαραθών) has a very prosaic definition in Greek – “a field of fennel.”  It is in that fennelfield that the Greeks overcame the Persian army.

I’m glad that the sport commemorating the victorious run to Athens was called a Marathon.  After all, it could have borne a-slightly-more-difficult-to-pronounce name – Pheidippides, after the world’s first marathon runner.

Zenith / Zenit

Chelsea has just defeated Spartak Moscow 4-1.  A friend of mine in London sent me some images from the field with the red-white Spartakians scattered among the victorious blue-clad “Pensioners.”  This made me think that had Zenit been in place of Spartak, they would have surely won, right?  After all, they are my hometown’s legendary football team, and with a name like Zenit, they’d have no choice but to conquer.

The word zenith originates from Medieval Latin, and was first recorded in 1387 through a Latin transliteration of Arabic samt “road, path,” abbreviation of samt ar-ras, literally “the way over the head.”  Arabic letter m was misread as ni and became the Latin cenit, which in turn became cénit in Spanish, zénith in French, zenit in Italian, Zenit in German, zenith in English, and Зенит (Zenit) in Russian – the point of sky directly overhead, or, figuratively, the time in which something is most powerful or successful.

Which leads us to the one and only FC Zenit of St. Petersburg, which has been at the zenith of success ever since winning the Russian Premier League in 2007 and lifting the club’s first ever UEFA Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 2008!

St. Petersburg hosted Russia’s first football match in 1897, when the predecessor of Zenit, local Russian football team Petrograd, played against the English team Ostrov.  Several professional football teams were then formed in St. Petersburg, which changed names and owners reflecting the turbulent politics of that time.  Murzinka, Bolshevik and Stalinets were some of the names predating Zenit.  The current name Zenit FC was registered in 1936 under Joseph Stalin, who hated St. Petersburg with Asiatic passion.

Survivor of the Socialist Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922, the Great Patriotic Wars of 1914-1918 and 1941-1945, the Czarist and Communist regimes, Zenit is a true proud St. Petersburg icon.  The team is worshiped in the city.  Renowned composer Dmitry Shostakovich and famous actor Kirill Lavrov were among Zenit’s many distinguished fans.

Babushka

One of the few words widely used in English, babushka (бабушка) derives from the Russian baba, “peasant woman” plus the diminutive suffix -ushka.  The word in English is mostly used to refer to a headscarf folded diagonally and tied under the chin, the way it is worn by elderly women in Russia.  This meaning is absent in Russian language, which defines babushka as an “old woman” or a “grandmother.”  The English speakers tend to put the accent on the u, while the Russian pronunciation stresses the a in the first syllable of the word.

When I think of a babushka, I imagine a few Russian grandmas solemnly sitting on a bench in front of a shabby Soviet block building.  Russian babushkas have wrinkly faces, feisty attitudes, colorful headscarves and woolen Orenburg shawls.  Neighborhood benches serve as congregation platforms for gossip, complaining and neighborhood watch.  Babushkas mercilessly size up the local youth and keep everyone’s personal life under tight surveillance.

Babushka may also refer to the following:

• Babushka, “Grandmother,” an alias of Russian revolutionary Catherine Breshkovsky (Yekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Екатерина Константиновна Брешко-Брешковская), a Russian socialist revolutionary formally known as the Grandmother of the Russian Revolution.
• Babushka Lady is a nickname for an unknown woman wearing a Russian looking headscarf who might have photographed the assassination of JFK in 1963.  Babushka Lady was seen holding a camera by eyewitnesses, as well as observed in film accounts of the assassination.
• Babushka Doll is a synonym of the Matryoshka Doll, Russian famous nesting doll.
• In modern Russian slang, Babushka also comes to represent an elderly homosexual man.

Kopek

Kopek (копейка) – a monetary unit of Russia and some other countries of the former USSR, equal to one hundredth of a ruble (as per Oxford English Dictionary).

As the kopek is mounting the monetary scaffold, likely to be beheaded by the Russia’s Central Bank for being a fiscal diva, I felt the urge to look into the history of the mighty coin that gave birth to such pithy sayings as:

• Копейка рубль бережет
• Копейка к копейке
• Вставить свои пять копеек (favorite activity of all the Russian conversationalists)
  
• Влететь в копеечку
• В белый свет как в копеечку
• Размах – на рубль, удар – на копейку

There are several versions as to the origin of the word kopek (kopeika).  The most reliable interpretation derives it from kop’ë (копьë), Russian word for “spear,” a reference to the image of a rider, Saint George the Victorious (Георгий Победоносец) defeating a Serpent with his spear, on the coins minted by Moscow after the capture of Novgorod in 1478.

Vladimir Dal, one of the greatest Russian lexicographers, traces the stem of the word to kopit’ (копить), Russian verb meaning “to save money.”  This goes along with the popular Russian proverb, Копейка рубль бережет – “penny saves a dollar.”

Russian kopek circa late 18th Century

Kopek was born on March 20th, 1535 out of the monetary reform initiated by Elena Glinskaya, mother of Ivan the Terrible (not a nice guy by the way).  It was made out of silver and weighed 0.68 grams.

At the end of the 17th Century, Russian Czar Peter the Great, the biggest proponent of all things Western, decided to give the old kopek a facelift.  After having visited Western European mints, the forward-thinking Czar could only squeamishly refer to the démodé Russian coins as fleas (вши).  As a result, the year 1704 saw the birth of a kopek made of copper and minted according to the cutting edge technologies of that time.  Thanks to Peter the Great, Russia became the first country in the world to implement a decimal coin system.  As we will explore in my future posts, Peter was one swell Czar.

Soviet kopek

Under the Communist regime, the kopek acquired all the inevitable Soviet attributes with the USSR coat of arms in lieu of Saint George the Victorious, bearing the proletarian hammer and sickle.  As copper was needed in the all-consuming take-over-the-world Soviet industrialization process, kopek was now minted of an alloy of copper and zinc and weighed 1 gram.

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, kopek was quite a relevant currency.  1 kopek could buy you a matchbox (I used to terrorize my mother with mock attempts to set a fire), two unstamped envelopes (I bought envelopes to write letters to my American pen pal Leslie), and a glass of carbonated soda at a local grocery store (a sinful anti-hygienic pleasure, since all the neighborhood drunks thirsty for hangover remedy shared the same cup at the grocery vending machine).

Sadly, the kopek era might soon be coming to an end.  The nostalgic coin is an endangered species these days and may soon become металлолом, Russian for “scrap metal.”  There is certainly nothing you can buy with one kopek today.  A recent Reuters article reported on the innovative application of the coin in some Russian villages, where people use kopeks to make the floors (!!! – Голь на выдумки хитра, goes the Russian saying – a testament to the Russian commoners’ creativity).  Deemed too expensive to produce – production cost is 45 times higher than the value of the coin itself – kopek is now a luxury item on the Central Bank’s minting menu.

I keep a few kopeks in the coin purse of my fat American wallet – they remind me of the good old times when the metro ride was 5 kopeks, a telephone booth swallowed 2, and my favorite Russian baguette went for 22…

Intelligentsia

Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, Leader of the Russian Intelligentsia

Intelligentsia as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary:

“Intellectuals or highly educated people as a group, esp. when regarded as possessing culture and political influence.”

The word has its origins in the Latin intellegere – inter, “between” + legere, “to choose.”  The essence of the word is one’s ability to understand and perceive, which serves as basis for what we consider intellect.

English intelligence/intelligent, French intelligence/intelligent, German Intelligenz/Intellekt, Italian intelligenza/intelligente, Spanish inteligencia/inteligente all take common root in the Latin intellectus/intellegere.

The concept of intellectual elite as a distinct social stratum can be traced back in history.  The emergence of the intellectual classes had been noted,  among others, in Western European countries with die Gebildete in Germany and les intellectuels in France.

Intelligentsia (Интеллигенция), however, is a Russian borrowing that came into English in the 1920s.

Intelligentsiya as a specific term was coined in the 19th century Russia, the country polarized between vast ignorance and concentrated refinement.  The economic and cultural situation in Russia was conducive to creation of a separate well-educated прослойка (“stratum”) afflicted with all the typical symptoms of intellectual elitism: incessant brainwork and academic ambition, sensitivity, tact, subtle and at times self-effacing demeanor, moral idealism and high ethical standards, creative activity and independence.

Messianic in aspiration and patriotic in nature, Russian intelligentsia was tortured by two eternal questions: “Who is to blame?” (in Russia’s doom), and “What is to be done?” (about saving the Motherland).  Russian revolutionary democrat and writer, Nikolaly Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, hit the nail on the head, so to speak, with his famous “What Is to Be Done?” (Что делать?) – a novel that convinced the young generation of the revolutionarily inert intelligentsia in the necessity to act to overcome Russia’s socioeconomic problems.  The call to action gave a sense of purpose to the otherwise passive intellectuals and focused their abstract mental efforts on paving the concrete way to the Great Socialist Revolution.  Ironically, Russian intelligentsia was one of the first social classes to be victimized by the Soviet State, as any kind of intellectual and individual thinking posed a threat in the Bolshevik dictatorship.

Hmm… I always found intellectuals, especially of a Russian variety, to be rather absent-minded and self-destructive in their tendencies…

Kulak

Hello language lovers!

Until today, I did not know that the somewhat prosaic Russian word kulak (кулак) existed in the Oxford English dictionary, along with the more popular perestroika and glasnost.

Russian words adopted into English usually carry a heavy historic significance.

Same for kulak, a Russian word for “fist,” or “tight-fisted person,” which in turn takes its origin from the Turkic kol, meaning “hand.”

Kulaks were wealthy independent peasants under the Russian Empire, who were labled “tight-fisted,” because they were thought of as stingy employers who took advantage of their workers.

After the Russian Socialist Revolution of 1917, the Soviet State wanted to industrialize the agricultural production, which required collectivization of farms and land.  Described by Lenin as “bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who batten on famine,” kulaks resisted expropriation of their private property and were considered class enemy.

Kulaks’ defiance to let the Communist Party seize their property reinforced their tight-fisted reputation and let to dekulakization (раскулачивание) – liquidation of the kulaks as a class, when millions of kulaks and their families were exterminated by the Communists in 1929-1932.

Soviet attempts at agriculture reform, including collectivization, dekulakization and other equally brilliant Soviet measures, resulted in mass starvation and death of at least 14.5 million peasants in 1930-1937.

As we say in Russian, “Хотели как лучше, получилось как всегда” – “we wanted the best but got the usual.”