Political Correctness in Russia

Sat Dec 27 13:37:42 UTC 2008

Daniel makes some good points. I would only add that in English and 
Russian the words cult/kul't used in the special context of the 
veneration of saints in the Catholic, (High) Anglican and Orthodox 
Churches carries no pejorative sense. For established religions the only 
word which does not seem to be used pejoratively by one group or another 
is 'denomination' - which will not, of course, fit the context of the 
original enquiry. The Wikipedia article on 'cult' is an interesting and 
inevitably somewhat contentious map of the minefield.
Will Ryan

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> As I have been investigating the history of Christianity, I can report 
> on English usage in theological and historical treatises (as opposed 
> to popular, sociological, or legal usage).
>
> Generally the term "cult" is avoided in this literature because it has 
> negative connotations or because it refers to some specific external 
> ritual disconnected from a currently recognized organized religion 
> (e.g., "pillar cult").  "Sect," on the other hand, tends to be 
> utilized in neutral fashion to characterize what will eventually 
> become a respectable religion which (in historical retrospect) has 
> broken off from another respectable religion.  So we find early 
> Christianity treated in the following terms:
>
>             The very earliest Christians were Jews.  Primitive 
> Christianity has been variously referred to by historians as a “Jewish 
> sect,” a “sect within Judaism,” a “Jewish-messianic sect,” a “Jewish 
> revivalist movement,” and so on.[1]  So “Jewish,” indeed, were the 
> early Christians, that Jeremy Cohen has seen fit to characterize the 
> interpretative work of Jesus’ disciples as the “earliest 
> Christological midrash.”[2]
>
> [1]   Daniélou 1969, 275; Hengel 1981 (1980), 3: Crossan 1999, xxxiii; 
> Vermes 2000, 141.
>
> [2]   Cohen 2007, 23; cf. also Geza Vermes on the “early Christian 
> pesher” (2000, 125).
>
>
> Since Russian "sekta" has such negative connotations nowadays (see 
> what Valery Belyanin says about the UNESCO rule), I imagine that the 
> above passage would be very difficult to translate into (inoffensive) 
> Russian.  Yet the English is completely inoffensive and neutral for 
> both Christian and Jewish theologians and historians.
>
> What if a sectarian group breaks off, establishes itself, but does not 
> persist?  The Essenes, say, or the Cathars.  Again, theologians and 
> historians writing in English would term these sectarian (or perhaps 
> "heretical" or "schismatic") groups, not "cults."
>
> And Jehovah's Witnesses?  This organization, although young by 
> comparison to the mainline religions, is a legitimate and respectable 
> religion in free countries.  Its members were systematically 
> persecuted in Nazi Germany.  As for Russia...
>
> With regards to the list -
>
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
>
>
>
> On Dec 23, 2008, at 6:15 PM, William Ryan wrote:
>
>> 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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