Political Correctness in Russia

[Alina Israeli]

What  Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote is very interesting, however it  
represents no problem for translation.

Секта by itself means only "религиозная община,  
отколовшаяся от господствующей  
ветви" (БТС). So while we may look at our contemporary sects  
with disdain and thus being PC avoid the term, historically it's just  
a fair description of a certain reality.

While "sekta" does not have any inherent negative connotations,  
"sektantstvo" does; its second meaning is узость и  
догматичность взглядов у лиц,  
замкнувшихся в своих узких групповых  
интересах. Interestingly enough, I could render it in English  
with another religious term parochialism —'very limited or narrow in  
scope or outlook; provincial' [Oh, where is Sarah Palin with her love  
of small towns?]

While English sect did not bring anything suspicious, French  
certainly did. While the word  secte  is fine, its derivatives have  
the parochial connotation:

sectaire — Personne qui professe des opinions étroites, fait preuve  
d'intolérance (en politique, religion, philosophie) (Petit Robert)

(My Multi — a Quebec dictionary [with apologies to all French] gives  
an even shorter definition: sectaire — fanatique, intolérant.)

And then there is

sectarisme — Intolérance, attitude sectaire. (Petit Robert)

So the derivation can certainly cast its shadow on the original word,  
obliquely.

Didn't UNESCO originate in French? I seem vaguely remember something  
to this effect from my childhood. That may continue to guide the  
policies, or the fact that the word has peculiar connotations in some  
languages.

In any event, there are other religious terms that have a standard  
and connotative meaning: иезуит in Russian and the French  
jésuite mean 'hypocrite', English to my knowledge lacks that meaning  
again.

AI

On Dec 27, 2008, at 2:04 AM, 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:
>
>>
>> A discussion of these terms in Russian can be found at http:// 
>> www.galactic.org.ua/SLOVARI/f-4.htm
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>

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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