Translation Question: German-Russian

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

21 April 2007

Dear colleagues,

I have just written the following footnote in a work-in-progress on 
Hitler's use of the Christian cross in the Nazi context:

> Compare Roman Bagdasarov’s avoidance of the Sanskrit-derived Russian 
> term /свастика/ and his preference for the German term /Hakenkreuz/ 
> when discussing the Nazi context (Bagdasarov 2001, 20).  A problem for 
> this Russian scholar is that the Russian language, unlike English, 
> German, and French (/croix gammée/) does not have a “cruciform” term 
> like “hooked cross” which adequately translates the German term 
> /Hakenkreuz/.
>

The question is this: is the second sentence correct?  Is there a 
Russian term which would adequately render what is commonly 
mistranslated from German as "swastika" in English?  (I am aware of the 
"Ariosophical" derivation of the Nazi hooked cross, but ordinary Germans 
of the 1930s - mostly Catholics and Protestants - would not have been).

With regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

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