Splendid isolation: "Gordoe odinochestvo"?

[Maryna Vinarska]

"Timothy D. Sergay" <tsergay at COLUMBUS.RR.COM> wrote: Dear Colleagues,

Has anyone every encountered or considered a relationship between "gordoe 
odinochestvo" and "splendid isolation"? I've been wondering about this.

................................."Gordoe odinochestvo" is normally used in ironical or humorous context. "Ostat'sia v gordom odinochestve" often means to lose, but to behave, say, decently, not hysterically or smth like that, or hide your bitterness behind the mask of a tough guy, etc.  If "splendid isolation" doesn't have this connotation, then maybe there is no relationship here at all... 

Besides, Russian "gordoe odinochestvo" doesn't fit to the isolationist foreign policy, to my mind... just because not every country is that lucky to afford smth like Splendid Isolation. And if the country _is_ that lucky, then it is probably not the case for smb's irony ("gordoe odinochestvo"), but for either envy or hatred... And that what the country gets as a result of such policy, is maybe exactly that "blagoslovennoe uedinenie", mentioned by Henry Whyte as one more translation for "splendid isolation", which, unfortunately, doesn't last long as history teaches... No harmony in this world...

Regards,
Maryna Vinarska


		
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