Political Correctness in Russia

[John Dingley]

Hi,

The OED gives this as the second meaning of Jesuit. Even Lenin gets a
mention:

2. transf. A dissembling person; a prevaricator. Also fig. depreciatory.
1640 A. LEIGHTON Pet. to Parlt. in Chandler Hist. Persec. (1736) 367
Apprehended in Black-Fryers,..and..dragged along (and all the way
reproached by the name of Jesuit and Traitor). 1692 WASHINGTON tr.
Milton's Def. Pop. iii. M.'s Wks. (1851) 90 Your self are more a Jesuit
than he, nay worse than any of that Crew. 1777 J. ADAMS in Fam. Lett.
(1876) 306 To humble the pride of some Jesuits, who call themselves
Quakers. 1851 GALLENGA Italy 45 He was himself a Jesuit in all but the
cunning. [1852 THACKERAY Esmond I. v. 99 Father Holt wore more suits of
clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers we are, Harry.]
1855 C. KINGSLEY Westward Ho! III. ii. 34 Eustace is a man no longer; he
is become a thing, a tool, a Jesuit. 1856 J. W. CARLYLE Jrnl. 11 Apr. in
Lett. & Memorials (1883) II. 271 ‘I'll tell you what to do,’ said this
Jesuit of a baker; ‘Go and join the Methodists' chapel for six months;
make yourself agreeable to them, and you'll soon have friends that will
help you in your object.’ 1878 N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 504 The political
Jesuits of the South. c1879 E. DICKINSON Poems (1955) III. 1015 The Jesuit
of Orchards He cheats as he enchants. 1907 G. B. SHAW Major Barbara III.
285 Charles Lomax: you are a fool. Adolphus Cusins: you are a Jesuit.
Stephen: you are a prig. Barbara: you are a lunatic. 1923 D. L. SAYERS
Whose Body? ii. 40 Gentlemen, we are not Jesuits, we are straightforward
Englishmen. You cannot ask a British-born jury to convict any man on the
authority of a probable opinion. 1947 V. S. PRITCHETT in Horizon May 241
Rubashov and Gletkin are a sad pair of Jesuits consumed and dulled as
human beings by their casuistry. 1948 D. SHUB Lenin vii. 152 In July 1916,
Viacheslav Menzhinsky, later chief of the Soviet secret police,..wrote:
Lenin is a political Jesuit who over the course of many years has molded
Marxism to his aims of the moment.

John Dingley

Quoting Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>:

> 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,
> замкнувшиÑ
ся в своиÑ
 узкиÑ
 групповыÑ

> интересаÑ
. 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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