one more question on kukharka

[harlo@mindspring.com]

Another note on kukharka:

In Prokofiev's opera "Liubov' k trem apel'sinam" ("Love for Three
Oranges"), composed in 1921, there is a character identified as Kukharka
(and Kukharochka) who is definitely a cook equipped with a large spoon and
standing at a stove--she is not a maid.

Harlow Robinson
Northeastern University




> [Original Message]
> From: Robert A. Rothstein <rar at SLAVIC.UMASS.EDU>
> To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
> Date: 8/10/2006 8:54:33 PM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] one more question on kukharka
>
> Edward M Dumanis wrote:
>
> >Kukharka is a kitchen maid. Since they did not generally have kitchen
> >maids in the USSR, the word went out of usage in standard contemporary
> >context.
> >
> >  
> >
>        Perhaps Lenin, Bukharin et al. used "kukharka" in the meaning 
> suggested by Professor Dumanis, but the 4-volume Academy Dictionary (I 
> don't have the 17-volume one at hand) defines "kukharka" as "rabotnitsa, 
> gotoviashchaia kushan'ia; povarikha" with examples from Chekhov of a 
> kukharka peeling potatoes and from the Soviet writer Babaevskii of a 
> kukharka preparing dinner. Dal' defines "kukharka" as "povarikha, 
> striapukha, prispeshnitsa," and both dictionaries list "kukhar'" as a 
> dialect form meaning "povar."
>     A more recent quotation comes from Egor Gaidar (from an interview in 
> _Izvestiia_, 27 June 2003): "Samyi ser'eznyi risk segodnia [...] - 
> prikhod v ekonomicheskuiu politiku kukharki s pistoletom."
>     And another _krylatoe vyrazhenie_: _kukharkiny deti_, which derives 
> from (but is not found in) a document promulgated in 1887 by I. D. 
> Delianov, the minister of education, which prohibited _gimnazii_ and 
> _progimnazii_ from admitting "detei kucherov, lakeev, povarov, prachek, 
> melkikh lavochnikov i tomu podobnykh liudei, koikh, za iskliucheniem 
> razve odarennykh neobyknovennymi sposobnostiami, ne sleduet vyvodit' iz 
> sredy, k koei oni prinadlezhat."
>
> Bob Rothstein
>
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