SUMMARY OF MEDVED'& KUL'T LICHNOSTI

[Michael M Brewer]

Seelangers

I posted a message not long ago asking about the word "medved'" and the
term "kul't lichnosti." A couple people asked me to give a summary of the
answers I received.  Thank you for those who sent me information.  I will
not list who gave me what to save time and space.  Apologies in advance.

Medved':

Sobolevskii (Slavia 5, 449), discusses the possibility of "roso-makha
[Gulo borealis] being related to the Indo-European word for bear, *rtko-,
(which was tabooed in Slavic, Baltic and Germanic, though Steve Young has
recently shown that the root survived in derivatives with meanings other
than bear in Baltic).

Fasmer gives medved' as either coming from "med +ved" (honey leader or
knower), or "med+ed" (honey eater), though the "v" is not explained.  Buck
gives similar etymology.  [for some reason all the linguists seemed to
like the second possibility to the first, despite the unexplained "v"]

Medved' is documented as early as 1073 in writing.

More literature:  D. K. Zelenin's magisterial work "Tabu slov u narodov
Vostochnoi Evropy i Severnoi Azii."  E. Stankiewicz's "Slavic kinship
terms and the perils of the soul" in Journal of American Folklore.

Someone commented that in Serbo-Croatian there is the saying "Mi o vuku, i
vuk na vrata" [we speak of the wolf and the wolf is at the door]

Another respondent pointed out that there are additional ways of avoiding
the word "medved'" as well -- toptugin, kosolapyi, on, khoziain, etc.

Kul't lichnosti:

First used in the introduction to articles/speeches on the 50th
anniversary of the CPSU (July 1953) in "Kommunist" of that month and year
(pp. 25-6).  Stalin is not specifically mentioned but is inferred, as is
the culture of the late Stalin period.

Used in Pomerantsev's article "Ob iskrennosti v khudozhestvennoi
literature" in November 1953.

Another person commented that they thought the term may have initially
been used in the 1920's in the campaign against individuality.




Michael Brewer                  e-mail  mmbst35+ at pitt.edu
Department of Slavic Languages  fax     1-412-624-9714
1417 Cathedral of Learning      voice   1-412-661-4722
Pittsburgh, PA 15260