"putin(ov)shchina" exists.

[Alina Israeli]

>In this context, one such form, Yezhovshchina, might be considered as a
>borrowing from Russian into English (565 Google entires in transliteration,
>only 687 in Cyrillic).

-shchina has a very negative connotation. Some time in early 70's or maybe
late 60's Solzhenitsyn coined the word "obrazovanshchina". Voenshchina (as
in "amerikanskaja voenshchina") was a staple of Soviet political speeches.

So not anyone (including Mr. Spooner) could expect to produce a -shchina
named after him, only if we sufficiently desprise him and whatever he has
produced. Yezhovshchina certainly fits. Then of course there are prosodic
reasons (if the name is too long or ends in a vowel) for blocking the
creation of a -shchina noun. Koganovichevshchina seems impossible,
Berievshchina involves an extended suffix -evshchina to deal with the final
vowel.

And then of course we could demonize someone, why not? Berdjaevshchina
exists, does berdjaevizm exist? I don't know.


I think Italian has a similar suffix -esca (soldatesca, puttanesca, known
better on these shores as spaghetti sauce). Please correct me if I am wrong.

-ism and -ist came into Russian in the early 20th century, I believe.

Lenin and Stalin did change their names for "poetic" reasons, no doubt (
creating their own -ism's probably was not among their reasons), not
everyone is lucky to have a beautifully sounding name like Napoleon (three
sonorants out four consonants, for Russian, not for French) for
overthrowing the world.


__________________________
 Alina Israeli
 LFS, American University
 4400 Mass. Ave., NW
 Washington, DC 20016

 phone:    (202) 885-2387
 fax:      (202) 885-1076 

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