Platonov: a sentence from Kotlovan (stuchit)

[Deborah Hoffman]

For what it's worth Rossi's Gulag Handbook has the following entry for stukach (redirected from stuknut', stuchat', to inform)
   
  Stoolie. "Individual who knocks on a cell door in order to be allowed into the corridor to make a secret report," informer; see seksot. The term was unknown in Tsarist prisons, appearing at the very beginning of Soviet power (in their dictionaries, Trakhtenberg (1908) and Popov (1912) show only stuchat--to speak, to argue).
   
  [konets tsytaty]
   
   
  >Date:    Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:46:39 +0000
>From:    Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
>Subject: Platonov: a sentence from Kotlovan (stuchit)
>
>Dear all,
>
>About 15 pages from the end of Kotlovan Yelisey says this to the
 >activist:
>=96 =D2=E0=EC =EC=E5=E4=E2=E5=E4=FC =F1=F2=F3=F7=E8=F2 =E2
 >=EA=F3=E7=ED=E5 =E8 =EF=E5=F1=ED=FE =F0=FB=F7=E8=F2 =96 >=E2=E5=F1=FC
 >=EA=EE=EB=F5=EE=E7 =E3=EB=E0=E7=E0 =EE=F2=EA=F0=FB=EB: =ED=E0=EC
=E1=E5=E7 =F2=E5=E1=FF =E6=F3=F2=EA=EE =F1=F2=E0=EB=EE!
>(Tam medved=92 stuchit v kuzne i pesnyu rychit =96 ves=92 kolkhoz glaza
 >otkryl: nam bez tebya zhutko stalo.
>At one level this means simply that the bear is making a lot of noise
>hammering in the smithy and that this has woken everyone up.  But
 =91ves=92
>kolkhoz glaza otkryl=92 has, I think, a secondary meaning: that the
 >whole collective farm has begun to see the truth.  What I want to know is
 >whether =91stuchit=92 could have the secondary meaning of =91inform=92, in the
 sense of =91denounce=92.  Were =91stukach=92 and =91stuchit=92=92 used in this
 way as early as 1930?

Best Wishes,

Robert



Deborah Hoffman, Esq.
Russian > English Legal and Literary Translations

A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life. -- R. G. Collingwood

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------