"Na miru i smert' krasna"

[Robert A. Rothstein]

It's not unusual for a proverb to be understood in more than one way, 
with different native speakers fully convinced that their interpretation 
is _the_ correct one. Sometimes they are not even aware that another 
interpretation exists. The English proverb "A rolling stone gathers no 
moss," for example, is understood positively by some speakers (i.e., if 
you keep moving/being active, you don't get tied down/stale etc.) and 
negatively by others (i.e., if you don't settle down, you won't acquire 
anything - a home, family, savings, etc.). Since I am not a native 
speaker of Russian, when I ventured to answer Lily Alexander's question 
about an English equivalent for the Russian proverb, I had recourse to 
published sources:

1. the phraseological dictionary compiled by Sophia Lubensky, who is a 
native speaker and also a careful scholar, and whose dictionary - as 
other colleagues have pointed out - is an extraordinarily useful 
reference work;

2. a small book by B. Tougan-Baranovskaia, "Proverbes et dictons russes 
avec leur équivalents français," published in Moscow sometime after 1960 
judging by the bibliography;

to which I can now add:

3. V. P. Zhukov, "Slovar' russkikh poslovits i pogovorok," izd. 4-e, 
ispravlennoe i dopolnennoe (M.: Russkii iazyk, 1991).

    Zhukov explains the proverb "na miru (na liudiakh, s liud'mi) i 
smert' krasna" as follows: "Kogda chelovek ne odin, vse mozhno 
perezhit', dazhe umeret' ne strashno." His entry includes several 
literary examples ranging from the 18th to the 20th century, the first 
of which is from Lev Tolstoy's "Metel': "Vidno bylo, chto nesmotria na 
to, chto on byl ochen' trusovat, - na miru i smert' krasna; on 
sovershenno stal spokoen s tekh por, kak nas bylo mnogo." Zhukov 
compares this proverb with another, "S mirom i beda ne ubytok," which he 
calls "ustarelaia" and explains as, "Sredi liudei, kotorye vsegda 
pomogut, ne tak oshchutimy beda, neschast'e i t.p."

None of this proves that the alternative interpretations, such as the 
one provided most recently by Gasan Gusejnov, are wrong. It may suggest, 
however, that there is a majority interpretation (or a traditional one) 
and a minority interpretation (or a newer one).

Bob Rothstein

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