Political Correctness in Russia

[William Ryan]

This is a good example of where 'political correctness' is a matter of 
local sensitivities and perspectives. I don't think there can be a 
'correct' translation, or at least not one which works for all varieties 
of English. Words like sect and cult have a range of meanings and can be 
problematical in the discussion of religion since they tend to be used 
by the dominant religions, or in countries where there is an established 
religion, to describe pejoratively groups which have broken away from 
the parent body, or have esoteric doctrines, or have been only recently 
invented. There seems to be no consensus yet in the specialist 
literature on the usage of such words in English, and its cognates in 
other European languages - one man's 'New Age cult' or 'fundamentalist 
sect' is another's 'vernacular religion' or 'alternative spirituality'. 
Many new religious or magical movements try very hard to obtain 
recognition as bona fide religions, not least because in some countries 
this entitles them to tax breaks - some states of the USA have been 
particularly generous in that respect and given tax exemption to groups 
which have been banned elsewhere as pernicious.

Totalitarian in English and totalitarnii in Russian normally have only a 
political meaning (the 1984 edition of the 4-vol. Academy dictionary 
gives it as a synonym of 'fascist'). The use of the word in this way is 
not yet accepted in the Oxford English Dictionary but has been used in 
recent years with respect to cults, as has the expression 'destructive 
cults' - both, of course, imply a negative attitude to the phenomenon.

A discussion of these terms in Russian can be found at 
http://www.galactic.org.ua/SLOVARI/f-4.htm

All this does not help you much, and I can only suggest cynically that 
if the expression occurs in a document which you are translating for a 
client, you should simply take into account his religious or political 
convictions. What you do in a legal document or a sociology of religion 
textbook is another matter, or perhaps two different other matters, and 
I look forward to reading the suggestions of others.

Will Ryan



Valery Belyanin wrote:
>  Trying to understand what to do with political correctness, I came
>  across the expressionрелигиозная тоталитарная секта =_religioznaja
>  totalitarnaja sekta_ which I was asked to translate into English.
>
>  I remember that the word _sekta_ was not recommended for usage by
>  UNESCO (at least I was told so this during the court session in 2001
>  in Moscow when I made a psycholinguistic analysis of the texts of
>  Jehova witnesses' documents). I had to use Замкнутое религиозное
>  объединение тоталитарного типа =_zamknutoje religioznoe objedinenije
>  totalitarnogo tipa_but that was rather clumsy.
>
>  My question is:What is the politically correct translation of Russian
>  expression религиозная тоталитарная секта = _religioznaja
>  totalitarnaja sekta_
>
>  Thank you.
>


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