Soviet phraseology
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Soviet phraseology, or Sovietisms, i.e., the
neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
s and cliches in
Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...
of the epoch of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, has a number of distinct traits that reflect the Soviet way of life and
Soviet culture The culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the country's 69-year existence. It was contributed to by people of various nationalities from every one of fifteen union republics, although a majority of the influence was made ...
and politics. Most of these distinctions are ultimately traced (directly or indirectly, as a cause-effect chain) to the
utopic A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
goal of creating a new society, the ways of the implementation of this goal and what was actually implemented. The topic of this article is not limited to the Russian language, since this phraseology permeated all national languages in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Russian was the language of inter-nationality communication in the Soviet Union, and was declared
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of the state in 1990, therefore it was the major source of Soviet phraseology.


Taxonomy

The following main types of Sovietism coinage may be recognized: *
Semantic shift Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from t ...
: for example, "to throw out" acquired the colloquial meaning of "to put goods for sale". In the circumstances of total consumer goods shortage, putting some goods on shelves had a character of certain suddenness, captured in the expression. "Ivan, grab your '' avoska,'' oranges have been thrown out down on the corner!" — it was not that someone jettisoned oranges; rather a makeshift stall was set up in the street to sell oranges. *Intentional
word coinage In linguistics, word formation is an ambiguous term that can refer to either: * the processes through which words can change (i.e. morphology), or * the creation of new lexemes in a particular language Morphological A common method of word form ...
for new elements arisen in the Soviet/Socialist world, often as
abbreviation An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
s and
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s:
Gosplan The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( rus, Госплан, , ɡosˈpɫan), was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of ...
,
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
,
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
,
kombed In Soviet-ruled Russia the Bolshevik authorities established Committees of Poor easants'' (russian: Комитеты Бедноты, ''komitety bednoty'' or russian: комбеды, ''kombedy'', commonly rendered in English as kombeds) during th ...
,
agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...
, etc. *Colloquial word coinage:
khrushchovka A ''khrushchevka'' ( rus, хрущёвка, khrushchëvka, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfkə), also known by the derogatory nickname ''khrushchoba'' ( rus, хрущоба, khrushchoba, t=khru-slum), is a type of low-cost, concrete- paneled or brick three- to ...
,
psikhushka Psikhushka (russian: психу́шка; ) is a Russian ironic diminutive for psychiatric hospital. In Russia, the word entered everyday vocabulary. This word has been occasionally used in English, since the Soviet dissident movement and diaspora ...
*Stylistic cliches: "forever alive" (about
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
), "laboring
intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
", 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 joke Russian political jokes are a part of Russian humour and can be grouped into the major time periods: Imperial Russia, Soviet Union and finally post-Soviet Russia. In the Soviet period political jokes were a form of social protest, mocking and criti ...
s. For example, the formula " The Party is Intellect, Honor, and Conscience of our Epoch" was mathematically transformed into "Intellect is party minus honor minus conscience of our epoch." *Quite a few pejorative terms were standardized for numerous
enemies of the people The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
and other
anti-Soviet Anti-Sovietism, anti-Soviet sentiment, called by Soviet authorities ''antisovetchina'' (russian: антисоветчина), refers to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the ...
subjects: "sharks of imperialism", "
rootless cosmopolitan Rootless cosmopolitan () was a pejorative Soviet epithet which referred mostly to Jewish intellectuals as an accusation of their lack of allegiance to the Soviet Union, especially during the antisemitic campaign of 1948–1953. This campaign ...
s". " The whore of capitalism" was an
epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
for
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
.


Beginnings

An initial surge of intentional word coinage appeared immediately after the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
. The declared goal of
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
was "to abolish the capitalist state with all its means of oppression". At the same time, the instruments of the state were objectively, necessary, and they did exist, only under new names. The most notable example is
People's Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
/
People's Commissariat A People's Commissariat (russian: народный комиссариат; Narkomat) was a structure in the Soviet state (in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, in other union and autonomous republics, in the Soviet Union) from 1917– ...
which corresponded to minister/
ministry Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...
(and in fact the latter terms were restored in 1946).


Soviet political humor

Ben Lewis wrote in his essay, book,Ben Lewis (2008) "Hammer and Tickle",
a review online
and film (all titled '' Hammer & Tickle'') that "
Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
was a humour-producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations. There were jokes under
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
and the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
s 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 President
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
(due to his anti-alcohol campaign). "Kukuruznik" (from ''kukuruza'', maize) referred to
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
.


See also

*
New Soviet names Given names of Soviet origin appeared in the early history of the Soviet Union,Richard Stites, ''Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution''p. 111/ref> coinciding with the period of intensive word formatio ...
*
Thought reform in the People's Republic of China Thought reform in China (), also known as ideological remolding or ideological reform, was a campaign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reform the thinking of Chinese citizens into accepting Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (Maois ...
*
LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii ''LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen'' (1947) is a book by Victor Klemperer, Professor of Literature at the Dresden University of Technology. The title, half in Latin and half in German, translates to "''The Language of th ...
, a book that studies the way that Nazi propaganda altered the German language


References


Further reading


"Soviet Language"
BBC Russian Service, October 11, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Soviet Phraseology Soviet culture Historical linguistics