Political Correctness in Russia/zhid

[Alina Israeli]

There are several serious fallacies in Robert's post.

1. I gave my opinion as a Jew (with some interesting history in the  
Soviet Union) and a Russian language specialist. It certainly does  
not mean mean that
	a) Jews and non-Jews hold the same opinion on the subject;
	b) everyone has my level of enlightenment in the history of the  
Russian language.

Simply put, the collection I cited has been used by raving  
antisemites as call to action, i.e. Jews were always called zhidy, we  
have all sorts of literary exemplars to prove it, so let's continue  
doing so. (Part I of the book is called Parxatye zhidishki i  
nezabvennye zhidovki, which includes Turgenev, Chekhov, Gorky,  
Korolenko, Kuprin, Prat II is called "Evrejskij vorpos" v russkoj  
publicistike, which begins with Dostoevsky, a must for every  
antisemite.) It is also interesting, at least to me, that as the  
numbers of Jews in Russia dwindle (although it will probably not get  
to zero in my life time), the antisemites are as virulent as ever.  
Needless to say they are just as keen on most other non-Russian  
ethnic group if not more. Now the call "Rossija dlja russkix" is hear  
(or read) more often than before, yet no on is in favor shedding  
traditionally non-Russian territories. (A funny aside, many of them  
would be very surprised to find out that they are more Finnish by  
blood than Slavic, or have a healthy dose of Mongol blood.)

Similarly, the n... word in Huck Finn could be misconstrued as a  
model to emulate without appropriate training for teachers. (And I am  
not familiar with Agatha Christie's story despite the fact that until  
now I was sure I read all of her works.)

2. Creating a non-Western jurisdiction, particularly written in Moscow.

As most people probably have noticed, the US does not like any supra- 
national jurisdictions, which does not mean that they are bad, but  
the rugged individualist's culture does not tolerate jurisdictions  
from outside (many can barely tolerate jurisdictions from within).  
End of story.

Assuming that Moscow is capable of being a beacon of tolerance and a  
legal model on ethnic issues that we here in the US should follow  
(Mark Twain and all) is yet another serious fallacy.

AI

On Dec 9, 2008, at 9:15 AM, Robert Orr wrote:

> This is a sort of common sense response.  The inteersting part of  
> the wider phenomenon is why similar approaches could not be used  
> for Huckleberry Finn, or the title of Agatha Christie's famous story.
>
> Comparative studies of political correctness in the US and in all  
> sorts of non-Western jurisdictions are definitely in order - some  
> should certainly be written in Moscow.
>
>
>> That's not a problem. In the first half of the 19th century that  
>> was  a standard reference to a Jew in Russian language, the same  
>> as in  Polish. You can find it in Pushkin as well. What's more  
>> problematic  is this recent collection "Evrei i zhidy v russkoj  
>> klassike" http:// www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2425530/ which was  
>> greeted gleefully in some parts of Russian blogoshere.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 8, 2008, at 3:28 PM, Robert Orr wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Po greble, so vzglyadom ugryumym,
>>> Prohodit oborvannyj zhid,
>>> Iz ozera s penoj i shumom
>>> Voda cherez greblyu bezhit.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 1840-e gody
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Alina Israeli
>> LFS, American University
>> 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
>> Washington DC. 20016
>> (202) 885-2387 fax (202) 885-1076
>> aisrael at american.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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