Anekdot query

[Josh Wilson]

Does anyone really stereotype Russians as philosophers? I know there have
been many greats from Russia - but as a stereotype (and joke) I'm not sure
it works. 

I don't know how many times I've heard this joke - even told to me by
Russians in Russia and I don't think I've ever heard the Russians mentioned
in list. 

I've usually heard it as: 

Heaven: the policeman is British, the lover is Italian, the cook is French,
the engineer is German and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell: the policeman is German, the lover is Swiss, the cook is British, the
engineer is French and it is all organized by the Italians.

A quick look online also reveals this variant: 

Heaven: the cook is French, the car is German, the police is English, the
woman is Italian and the service is American.

And Hell is: the cook is English, the car is American, the police are
Italian, the woman is French and the service is German.

If to add the Russians in in a way prompts hard-core stereotypes, might I
suggest:

Heaven: the Russians make the toasts

Hell: the Russians make the toasts. 


Josh Wilson
Asst. Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor-in-Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
jwilson at sras.org


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Ben Rifkin
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 7:12 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Anekdot query

Dear SEELANGers:

Can someone help remind me of the Russian anekdot about heaven and hell,
something along the lines of heaven is the place where the cook is French,
the police officer is English, the engineer is German, the lover is Italian,
and the philosopher is Russian, while hell is the place where the cook is
English, the philosopher is Italian, the police officer is German ...
(perhaps here we could add that the American is the

I know this anekdot is not from War & Peace, in which Tolstoy writes about
the arrogance of different peoples and concludes that the arrogance of the
German is the worst because he knows unquestioningly that he is right.

I want to present some context for discussing stereotypes in class. I¹ll be
using the famous elephant book contest (competition to come up with a book
about elephants, joke from the 1980s).

Thanks for your help.

Ben Rifkin



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