palach

[Olga Meerson]

Here are the following arguments for "torturer".

#1. The dictionary translation of the word "torturer" from English to Russian (note that the back translation will not be the same, because dictionaries do not always account for the specific cultural context as self-evident):

http://lingvo.yandex.ru/torturer/%D1%81%20%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE/


#2 Evidence in actual texts, the one here from 18th C. torture practices in Russia...
For those of you needing documentation, please pay attention, in the following document, to the fact that kazn' and pytka are used almost synonymously as the duties of the (same) appointed palach. These, as you can see, are the specific instructions for the torturer as to how to torture "properly". Throughout the text, this torturer is referred to as "kat ili palach". Robert (Ch.), you may also remember the use of the word in "Epifanskie shliuzy". The document below is eerily interesting...
http://www.imha.ru/knowledge_base/base-14/1144529869-obryad-kako-obvinennyj-pytaetsya.html

Etymologies do help but let us remember that so many things are superimposed on them with what is key and basic in each culture (as Wierzbicka would say). As my late and great (!) teacher Bob Maguire used to tell us in class, "with some competence, it is possible to translate any word from Russian -- except a foreign one."   :) Evidence: torturer can be and often is translated as palach but palach is not translated as torturer.

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