Khrushchev's bury remark

[VANCHU, ANTHONY J. (JSC-AH)]

Genevra and Francoise bring up the important point that the American
interpretation of the Russian words matters, incorrect though it may be.
Clearly, the commonly accepted interpretation --that the Soviets would
"...kill you and therefore will have to dig your grave," lacked an
appropriate cultural context when rendered in English.  Granted, the Russian
isn't exactly expressing the warmest wishes, but it's also a far cry from
killing outright.

Since we do a lot of language and cultural training at NASA with people who
will be living and working in Moscow and Star City, Khrushchev's comment is
an example I use repeatedly to emphasize the perils of a (mis)translation
that does not take into account the original speaker's cultural and
linguistic context.  The fate of this phrase also highlights the fact that
keeping Cold War propaganda going was more important than understanding what
really happened in this incident.

Fortunately, most of our students are old enough at least to have some vague
notion of who Khrushchev even was...


Dr. Anthony Vanchu
Russian Language Program Director
TTI/JLEC
NASA Johnson Space Center
(281) 483-0644




-----Original Message-----
From: Francoise Rosset [mailto:frosset at WHEATONMA.EDU]
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2000 1:38 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Khrushchev's bury remark


Well, from a purely personal point of view, I like "We'll be dancing
on your graves," which is not as aggressively and easily misunderstood
as "we'll bury you," but still packs a nice political punch.
Then again, not being a native of English, I may be making up this
idiom entirely. I do that sometimes ...

And I think D.P. is absolutely right that we need to look at the history
and the context, not to mention at what people actually said !!
True, the American interpretation matters, but not because it was justified.
In this case it was -- as common to both sides then -- misguided and rather
narcissistic, and conveniently bolstered the feeling that the Bad Guys
were just itching to hit the U.S. To me the American interpretation is
a more telling symptom of cold war mentality than what NSK said.
-FR

Francoise Rosset                          phone:  (508) 286-3696
Department of Russian                     fax:    (508) 286-3640
Wheaton College                           e-mail: frosset at wheatonma.edu
Norton, Massachusetts 02766

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                http://members.home.net/lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                http://members.home.net/lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------