From Russia with Love

Why there's no Russian word for "Political Correctness"

The issue of political correctness and racism was an important enough topic for Amercians studying in Russia that an entire presentation at our orientation was devoted to dealing with Russians' attitudes towards race. Growing up in the US, even in the midwestern, stereotypically honky state of Kansas, i was raised with a respect for people different from myself. Hours of class time were devoted to diversity education both in Elementary and High School so as to engrain the ethos of acceptance that the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and 70s established as a prerequisite for all educated Americans. Such a movement never took place in the Soviet Union, not because Russians were in love with their racist attitudes or because slavery never existed (indeed, slavery – or the Russian incarnation of it, serfdom – was a social institution that thrived until 1861) or even because the African population of Russia is paltry but thanks to, of all people, Stalin. During his tenure as the iron fist of the USSR, Stalin carried out a program of Russofication through which he created the Soviet people. Let me explain….
Russsofication entailed the compulsory learning of Russian language, forced resettlement (to fight feelings of nationalism) as well as the adoption of traditionally Russian mores and values by all peoples of the Soviet Union (a heavy task, especially when one considers that most if not all of the –stans, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc., were Muslim). One must understand that the USSR was composed of over 140 different ethnicities, many of which had been at each others’ throats for centuries (for example, the peoples of the former Yugoslavia), and in order to create a united Soviet nation, Stalin, himself a native son of Georgia, saw the need to create a united people (aside from being a complete monster, the man was also a complete genius). Russofication was intended to creat a new race of people – the Soviet people, who could champion the Communist cause with a united front. Although nationalities still appeared on ones passport (Armenian, Russian, Georgian, Jewish, etc.) all people in the USSR were above all considered Soviet. For this reason, the issue of civil rights and ethnic tolerance was a mute point since the government endorsed a policy which ignored ethnicity all together.
This, however, is not to say that ethnic distinctions did not exist in the former Soviet Union; they were mearing kept underground. As America’s recent battle over the civil rights of homosexuals has proven, to receive equality in the eyes of the government and the society at large, a marginalized group must first be visible. Since this visibility was surpressed by the government for so many years for the sake of soviet ideology, Russian culture’s racism continued to burn in Russians’ souls to the same degree it had before the Revolution.
That being said, I’d like to offer some anecdotes and stories of how the Russians I have met relate to ethnic minorities.
Despite the fact that Russians won the Second World War (contrary to many oppinions in the US, it was the Russians that defeated the Nazis, loosing about 28 million soldiers and civilians in the process), antisemitism continues to be a defining trait of the Russian soul. One of my classmates, Josephine, is the daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to the US in the 60-70s. During soviet times, Jews were the only people, as far as I can tell, that were allowed to leave the USSR (other than dissidents, who were more often than not sent to the Gulag or killed). They were considered dangerous to the government and society, and invited to leave the country so as not to pollute the population any more than they already had. Joesphine’s assigned hostess was disappointed at not getting ‘a real American”. By this, she meant that Josephine was Jewish (not Russian, as I would have assumed since Josephine grew up in a Russian household) and therefore, could be seen as nothing else. After politely smiling and nodding to a series of insane demands from her hostess (including, but not limited to paying rent on bath towels!), Josephine moved in with an old friend of her grandmother’s who lived in Moscow the next day.
Tatiana Nikolaevna, whom I considered to be very intelligent and educated, often slips antisemetic comments into our late night discussions over tea without even flinching. Whether we are talking about the government (which is “all run by jews”) or Russia’s many oligarchs (those who made a fortune after the fall of Communism and for all intents and purposes run the Russian Federation’s government, whom Tatiana insists, with the universal rubbing of thumb and forefinger - $ - are also all Jews), it is clear to me that Jews, as is often the case in today’s ‘modern’ world as it was in Hitler’s Germany, are often blamed for the maladays and poverty of contemporary Russian society. As our orientation presentation recommended, I try not to think too much of these comments since, unlike in the US that I grew up in, antisemitism is accepted in Russia. I just try to keep on reminding myself that Tatiana grew up in a different society with diferent values, and that, while she may be educated even by my standards, it doesn’t mean that she shares my cultural background.
Just last night I was telling her about my best friend at school, Sharai, who grew up in Brooklyn, NYC surrounded by Russians. Our first year, Sharai constantly told me that I was crazy for learning Russian, not because of the strange alphabet or the complicated grammar, but because, to her ears, it was simple an ugly language that, no matter in what context she would hear, always sounded like two people arguing and shouting at each other. Russian intonation patterns are VERY different from those in English, and I often attributed her opinions to this peculiarity of the language (to help elaborate this difference: I was once told that an American accent in Russian sounded to Russian ears much like a Hindi accent in English sounds like to English-speakers, if this gives you any idea of how Russian intonation differs. The rises and falls, the cadence of the foreigner’s very brainwaves are simple different). When I explained Sharai’s oppinion of Russian to Tatiana, she immediately understood Sharai, not because Tatiana has any linguistic training or is aware of Russian students’ many nightmares over intonation patterns, but because she knew that many of the Russians living in New York were Jews with their own way of speaking Russian, their own intonation patterns (which she demonstrated for me, in a very funny and, I assume, accurate manner). I laughed until I remembered so many times that I’ve heard white Americans immitate Black American parlance and how I imagined African Americans taking much offense to these impersonations.
The issue of what to call African Americans is also a very curious topic for Americans in Russia. Russians tend to refer to them with a word whose root is very obviously nigger, causing many of us to cringe when talking about blacks in the States. Interestingly enough, to call someone chyornii (black) in Russian is actually a racial slur, although it is generally reserved for those peoples of dark complection from the Caucuses and gypsies mistaken for caucasians (for those who are unaware, there is a war going on right in Chechnya, located in the Caucuses, and the face of terrorism for Russians is first and foremost caucasian, not arab). There is, however, a ‘politically correct’ term for caucasians – litsa kavkaskoi natsional’nost’ , or faces of caucasian nationality.
As a budding Romanologist (a person who studies Romani, or gypsy, culture and peoples), the position of the romani in Russian culture is especially interesting for me. I was recently talking to a Russian friend about some good venues for romani performing arts (concerts, theater and the like). We had just finished a conversation about personal safety in Moscow in which my friend Sasha (of course his name was Sasha!) told me that those looking for trouble tend to find it and that I should strive to avoid ‘problemy’, problems, whenever possible. When our conversation turned to Romani he told me that “gypsies on the street – they’re trouble. Gypsies on the stage – they’re alright”. This is the dominant attitude towards Romani in Russia, a place that has developed an interesting dichotomy between the revered gyspies of the stage and the hated ‘wild’ gypsies of the street and countryside who are believe to be able to mesmerize you into handing over all your money with the power of the ‘ochi chyornii’, black eyes. I won’t go further on this topic, as this entry is already pretty long and thanks to a final paper I wrote for Anthro Theory last semester, I could go on and on on the topic of gypsies in Russia.
I hope this provides some insight on a topic I continue to be stumped by – Russians and minorities. Some may notice that I didn’t even broach the topic of gays in Russia; look forward to this topic in future entries.

posted by Misha Molodoi @ 6:06 PM