Putinisms

This May I spotted a curious book in a Moscow bookstore. The softcover yellow volume promised 97 sayings by the Russian president in just 200 pages, covering everything from олигархи (oligarchs) to Всевышний (God Almighty), from маньяки и шпионы (maniacs and spies) to пьяницы и матерщинники (drunkards and matershchinniks [those, who overuse Russian mat – extremely rude language]), from дойная корова (milkcow) to карманы Гусинского (Gusinsky’s pockets). Intrigued, I put out 78 rubles for Путинки. Краткий сборник изречений президента (Первый срок) – Putinki. Concise Collection of President’s Aphorisms (First Term).

President Putin’s dictums, just as those of President Bush, have entered everyday speech. Linguists and speech writers argue that most Russians like the way their president speaks and do not mind his occasional use of slang or even inappropriate language.

The president first revealed his taste for a strong word (крепкое слово), when, at the beginning of his career as state leader, he promised to “wet” terrorists in the “outhouse” (мочить в сортире), or when he suggested to a critical French journalist that he come to Moscow to get circumcised (сделать обрезание).

Unfortunately, politicians’ aphorisms are often lost in translation. However, while to an English-speaking Russian Bushisms (бушизмы) present mainly a grammatical challenge, putinki offer a different kind of challenge to outsiders. Highly metaphoric and allusive, they often defy translation as a непереводимая игра слов (untranslateable wordplay).

Last fall, at a press conference in Yalta, after Russia’s signing of the Agreement of Common Economic Space with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, Putin was asked if this  agreement meant a return to the USSR. His reply was: “Это полная чушь, несуразица, сапоги всмятку.” (“This is total nonsense, absurdity, soft-boiled boots.”) The word всмятку is usually applied to eggs – яйцо всмятку is a soft-boiled egg. By applying it to boots, Putin gave a colorful, if difficult to translate, image of complete idiocy.

Some of the dictums quoted in Putinki stand a good chance of becoming proverbial. For instance, commenting on Russians’ eagerness to find scapegoats (найти козла отпущения) Putin waxed thus: “У нас есть старинная русская забава – поиск виновных.” (“We have an ancient Russian pastime – searching for people to blame.”) Or there was this: “Если мозги утекают, значит они есть” (“If there is a brain-drain, that means they are there [in the first place]”).

One basis for this book is that the president’s political philosophy could be said to reside in his aphorisms: “Люди простят все, кроме вранья” (“The people will forgive everything but lies”); “Проси больше, дадут, сколько нужно.” (“Ask for more, they will give you what you need.”); “Вертикаль не абсолют” (“The vertical [of power] is not an absolute.”) If that is the case, then these quotes at least show a distinctly pragmatic politician.

While all quotes in the book are meticulously dated and attributed to a printed source, they are, of course, presented out of context and could be said to be taking a point too far. As the president, who once called himself a раскрученный брэнд (a well-advertised brand) once said about a biography of him, “Я вообще не знаю, что там можно написать. Я бы лично про себя столько не смог написать” (“I do not know what could be written there. I personally could not write so much about myself”).

But, as long as there is a president and  a semblance of a free press, there will be books about him. And, back in 2001, Putin was quoted as saying “Перефразируя Марка Твена, могу сказать: информация о кончине свободной прессы в нашей стране сильно преувеличена.” (“Paraphrasing Mark Twain, I can say: ‘reports about the death of the free press in our country have been greatly exaggerated.”)

Only time will tell whether that statement will hold true four years from now, when (and if) Путинки (Второй срок) - Putinki (Second Term) is published.