one more question on kukharka

[John Dunn]

Elena Molokhovets (Podarok molodym xozjajkam, 2nd edn, SPb, 1901; repr. M., 1991) envisages her middle-class readers giving cooking instructions either to a povar or to a kuxarka:
тогда она уже можетъ требовать отъ повара или кухарки, чтобы супъ былъ постоянно такъ крѣпокъ
togda ona uzhe mozhet trebovat' ot povara ili kuxarki, chtoby sup byl postojanno tak krepok (p. III)
Perhaps the difference was not simply one of gender, but that in a household with fewer and hence less specialised servants a kuxarka might be expected to undertake tasks (peeling potatoes?) that were beneath the dignity of a povar.   

John Dunn.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Robert A. Rothstein" <rar at SLAVIC.UMASS.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:54:29 -0400
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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