Checkmate is an ambiguous concept. Some find it inappropriate, while others cannot imagine emotional communication without strong language. But it is impossible to argue with the fact that swearing has long become an integral part of the Russian language, and it is used not only by uncultured people, but also by fully educated representatives of society. Historians claim that Pushkin, Mayakovsky, Bunin and Tolstoy swore with pleasure and defended it as an integral part of the Russian language. Where did they come from? curse words, and what do the most common ones actually mean?
Where did the mat come from?
Many believe that obscene language dates back to the times of the Mongol- Tatar yoke, but historians and linguists have long refuted this fact. Golden Horde and most of the nomadic tribes were Muslims, and representatives of this religion do not defile their mouths with swearing, and the biggest insult for them is to call a person an “unclean” animal - for example, a pig or a donkey. Accordingly, Russian mat has more ancient history and its roots go back to ancient Slavic beliefs and traditions.
By the way, the designation of the male causal place in Turkic dialects sounds absolutely harmless - kutah. The bearers of the fairly common and euphonious surname Kutakhov would be surprised to learn what it really means!
A common three-letter word, according to one version, is the imperative mood of the verb “to hide,” that is, to hide
Most experts in ethnography and linguistics argue that swear words originated from the Proto-Indo-European language, which was spoken by the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, Germanic tribes and many other peoples. The difficulty is that its speakers did not leave any written sources, so the language had to be reconstructed literally bit by bit.
The word “mate” itself has several origins. According to one of them, it once meant a scream or a loud voice - confirmation of this theory is the expression “Yelling obscenities,” which has come down to our times. Other researchers claim that the term comes from the word “mother,” since most obscene constructions send an unwanted person to a certain mother, or imply having sexual relations with her.
The exact origin and etymology of swear words also remains unclear - linguists and ethnologists put forward many versions on this matter. Only three are considered the most likely.
- Communication with parents. During the times of Ancient Rus', old people and parents were treated with great respect and reverence, so all words with sexual overtones regarding the mother were considered a serious insult to a person.
- Connection with Slavic conspiracies. In the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, the genitals occupied a special place - it was believed that they contained Magic force person, and when addressing her, willy-nilly, one had to remember those very places. In addition, our ancestors believed that devils, witches and others dark entities They are extremely shy and cannot stand swear words, so they used obscenity as a defense against the unclean.
- Communication with peoples of other faiths. In some ancient Russian texts there is a mention that swearing has “Jewish” or “dog” origin, but this does not mean that non-Zentsurism came to us from Judaism. The ancient Slavs called any foreign beliefs “dogs,” and words borrowed from representatives of such religions were used as curses.
Some experts believe that swearing was invented as a secret language
Another common misconception is that Russian is the richest language obscene words of all that exist. In fact, philologists distinguish from 4 to 7 basic designs, and all the rest are formed from them using suffixes, prefixes and prepositions.
The most popular obscene expressions
In Serbia, whose language is related to Russian, obscene words are much less taboo
- X**. The most common swear word that can be found on walls and fences around the world. According to Wikipedia, at least 70 different words and idioms are derived from it, ranging from the short and understandable “fuck you” to the more original “fuck you” or “fuck you.” In addition, this word can be called one of the oldest and most respected in the Russian language - many researchers believe that it dates back to the Proto-Nostratic language, formed in the 11th millennium BC. The most common theory of its origin is from the Indo-European skeu-, which meant "shoot" or "shoot". From him came the more harmless and censored word “needles.”
- Fuck. This word was once quite decent and often used - this is the name of the 23rd letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, which after the reform turned into the letter X. Researchers cite various reasons for its transformation into an obscene statement. According to one theory, the cross was once called x*r, and defenders of paganism cursed the first Christians who actively spread their faith in Rus', telling them “Fuck you,” which meant “die like your God.” The second version says that in the Proto-Indo-European language this word was used to refer to a goat, including an idol of the patron of fertility, which had a large genital organ.
According to one version, shoemakers used obscene language more often than others due to the fact that they hit their fingers with a hammer
On the one hand, the frequent use of swear words indicates a person’s low culture, but on the other hand, they are part of history, literature and even the mentality of the Russian people. As the famous joke goes, a foreigner who lived in Russia for five years could not understand why “pi**ato” is good, and “f*ck” is bad, and “pi**ato” is worse, than “fucking”, and “fucking” is better than “fucking”.
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Russian obscenities is a system of words that have a negative connotation (curses, name-calling) that are not accepted by the norms of public morality. In other words, swearing is profanity. Where did Russian swearing come from?
Origin of the word "checkmate"
There is a version that the word “checkmate” itself has the meaning of “voice”. But a larger number of researchers are confident that “mat” comes from “mother” and is an abbreviated expression for “swearing,” “sending to mother.”
Origin of Russian swearing
Where did swearing come from in the Russian language?
- Firstly, some of the swear words were borrowed from other languages (for example, Latin). There were versions that swearing also came into the Russian language from Tatar (during the Mongol-Tatar invasion). But these assumptions were refuted.
- Secondly, most swear words and curses came from the Proto-Indo-European language, as well as Old Slavic. Thus, swearing in the Russian language is still “one’s own”, from the ancestors.
There are also certain versions of the origin of where swear words came from in the Russian language. Here are some of them:
- Connected to the earth.
- Related to parents.
- Associated with the subsidence of the earth, earthquakes.
There is an opinion that the pagan Slavs used many swear words in their rites and rituals to protect against evil forces. This point of view is quite viable. The pagans also used swearing in wedding and agricultural rites. But no big one semantic load, especially swear words, they didn’t have swear words.
Lexical composition of Russian swearing
Researchers have noticed that the number of swear words is high. But, if you are more careful, you will notice: the root of the words is often common, only the ending changes or prefixes and suffixes are added. Most words in Russian obscenities are in one way or another connected with the sexual sphere, genitals. It is important that these words have no neutral analogues in the literature. More often they are simply replaced with words with the same meaning, but in Latin. The uniqueness of Russian swearing is its richness and diversity. This can be said about the Russian language in general.
Russian swearing in a historical aspect
Since Christianity was adopted in Rus', decrees have appeared regulating the use of swear words. This, of course, was an initiative on the part of the church. In general, in Christianity, swearing is a sin. But the curse managed to penetrate so deeply into all segments of the population that Taken measures were completely ineffective.
Twelfth-century charters contain swear words in the form of rhymes. Swearing was used in various notes, ditties, and letters. Of course, many words that have now become obscene previously had a softer meaning. According to fifteenth-century sources, there was then a large number of swear words that were even used to call rivers and villages.
After a couple of centuries, swearing became very widespread. Mat finally became “obscene” in the eighteenth century. This is due to the fact that during this period there was a division literary language from colloquial. In the Soviet Union, the fight against swearing was carried out very stubbornly. This was expressed in penalties for foul language in public places. However, this was rarely carried out in practice.
Today in Russia they are also fighting against swearing, especially on television and in the media.
Sidorov G.A. about the origin of Russian swearing.
Origin of Russian swearing. Magazine Life is Interesting.
Russian swearing consists of three words. The first word symbolizes masculinity. The second is female. The third is the union of the male and female principles (the creation of life). There are several other words that designate parts of male or female organs or the organs themselves. But these words are used to a lesser extent and are grouped with one or another main word from the main triad.
A word (denoting a woman who is erring) is mistakenly classified as swear words, which is not such and comes from the verb “to wander,” that is, to be mistaken, to be mistaken. The apparent multitude of swear words in most cases is a set of multivariate modifications of three basic words.
All three of the above words have a clear pre-Indo-European origin, analogues in Sanskrit and all other Indo-European languages (specific etymologies and Proto-Indo-European sounds can be found in encyclopedias). This fact speaks of the exceptional antiquity of these words, which goes deep into preliterate times. This means that we will never be able to know their age. For the same reason, we cannot exclude the possibility that these words were among the first words of our Cro-Magnon ancestors, and maybe even Neanderthals.
Why did these three words pass with such a person? long haul, apparently having survived periods of taboo while retaining a recognizable ancient form and powerful emotional charge?
One possible answer to this question is the assumption of the religious nature of these words. Since ancient unwritten times, we have known sculptural and painted images that depict male and female organs. We cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that the drawings male organs in the Lascaux cave and the Paleolithic Venus from Hole Fels, were used for religious purposes. But the ritual nature of the lingams and yoni of the 18th century BC is no longer in doubt. And later cults give us a motley picture of the widespread use of symbols of the feminine and masculine principles in ancient rituals. One of the most striking such manifestations was the Mediterranean cult of Baal and Astarte. The rituals of worship of these gods included a description of the union of the feminine and masculine principles, which was often expressed in the corresponding actions of priestesses and priests.
But then in different regions peace in different time we are witnessing the collapse of cults that are based on the worship of the masculine, feminine principles and their combination. The feminine principle is discredited. The masculine principle comes to the fore. This can be seen in Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and then in Christianity, which, however, in a hidden form returns the previously lost feminine principle. Kabbalah, as a later modification of Judaism, also tries to return the feminine principle to the ritual space.
A possible reason for the interruption of ancient cults was their secularization (desacralization). Perhaps the once sublime, inspired rituals were over time perverted by people and took the brutal forms of drunkenness, orgies, self-mutilation and murder. Tough reform was required to restore righteousness and piety. Those who did not want to reform their religion perished (Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah, Carthage, etc.).
In some corners of the Earth these cults have been preserved. For example, the cult of Shiva and Kali in the jungles of India. The well-known Hindu temples of Khajuraho with erotic sculptures date back to the 11th century after Christ. There are eyewitness accounts on the Internet about how children are still sacrificed in such temples in the impenetrable jungles of Hindustan.
Perhaps, during the period of such reforms, which took place on the territory of Ancient Rus' around the 10th century AD, Russian swearing as the language of a degraded once high cult was taboo.
This assumption is indirectly confirmed by the fact that religious forms are the most conservative and “tenacious” in any culture. A small example from life may be the use by convinced atheists of the word “thank you,” which in the original sounds “God save (you)!” And how many similar words we use without knowing their meaning!
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that checkmate in modern application, apparently, is the last form of the most ancient liturgical language, degraded in its opposite. In cases of late ritual use of these words, witchcraft rituals, blood sacrifices and orgies took place. Therefore, in fact, the use of these words is now unforgivable blasphemy. Think about the possible original pure meaning of these words, but try not to use them.
HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN MATThis is what caught my eye today:
The results of the all-Russian campaign “Day without swearing” have been summed up:
- The work of all car services was completely paralyzed.
- All loading and unloading operations have stalled.
- Football and hockey players did not understand the coach on
installation before the match.
- All the plumbers and school labor workers died with a sigh.
- Ordinary residents did not know how to respond to
the elementary question "Where?" 
The history of the emergence of Russian swearing.
As historians note, the Slavic tribes, of course, swore, but their swearing was, in comparison with what happened next, sheer innocence, and their swearing was rather in comparison with domestic animals (cow, goat, ram, bull, mare, etc.). d.). But in 1342 Russian principality Batu Khan attacked. And it is precisely for the swearing that we hear now that we can thank the Tatar-Mongols. Still, three centuries of yoke did not pass without a trace for Russia. What’s interesting is that in countries that have suffered the same fate, they swear in almost the same way. So, for example, the Serbian “ebene sluntce v pichku” is almost identical to our “e..t”. In fact, synonyms of swear words pronounced in Russian are also reflected in Polish language, and in Hungarian - such a distant language of the Finno-Ugric group, and by no means of the Slavic group of languages.
After the Mongol everyone swore. Rich and wealthy nobles considered it beneath them to speak swear words, but the works of Pushkin, Nekrasov, and Gogol, who were not averse to using swear words, have reached us. All of them, in one way or another, learned to correctly express obscene thoughts from the actual founder of obscene poetry - Igor Semenovich Barkov - a classic of Russian obscene literature. though swear language It was precisely as a spoken language that was more characteristic of the workers and peasants, who, in the opinion of our beloved party for so long, made the revolution in 1917.
After this incident, a large number of these same peasants and workers - uneducated people who were accustomed to expressing almost all their thoughts through “b@ya” - fell into power and began to spin. Both Lenin (even though he was from an educated family) and Stalin, who graduated from a church gymnasium, swore. It was during the latter period that mating received particular development.
The constant exile of people who are not guilty of being Jews or born in Russia gave impetus to Russian swearing. In fact, at this time, multi-syllable obscene expressions began to form; they began to express their opinions using obscenities. Mat became the language of the zone, understandable both to the prisoners and to the people who guarded them. Half the country, serving time for crimes or nothing at all, gave a very big impetus to the development of swearing. In 1954, the so-called “thaw” began, and samizdat books began to appear with Barkov’s poems or attributed to his work (it was easier to indicate the name of a person who died in the 18th century than to answer for everything said). It was then that most of the obscene ditties appeared, reflecting the changes and inventions of mankind (TV, space flights, the end of the war). Mat has become an integral part of Russian life. "The Gulag Archipelago", for which Solzhenitsyn received Nobel Prize full of obscene expressions that more express the state of the characters in the novel than the literary language.
In connection with freedom of speech, which has been in Russia for 10 years now, swearing has come out of hiding, and well-designed publications with swear words and dictionaries of swear words have begun to appear.
No titleHere's some more interesting stuff:
ORIGIN OF RUSSIAN MATE
Artem DENIKIN
"Analytical newspaper "Secret Research"
Where did Russian swearing come from? And why do Russians swear?
MYTHS AND TRUTH ABOUT RUSSIAN MATE
There are a lot of myths around Russian swearing that do not correspond to reality. For example, Russian linguists and historians have spread two myths about swearing: that Russians began to swear in response to the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” and that swearing is supposedly “a product of Slavic paganism.”
In fact, the Slavs never swear. Including Belarusians and Ukrainians, as well as Poles, before the Russian occupation of 1795, the worst curses were only “curva” (corrupt girl) and “cholera” (disease). Neither Kievan Rus, nor the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, nor the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have preserved a single document with obscenities and not a single order from the authorities on the fight against swearing, although in Muscovy there is a huge abundance of such documents.
If it were not for the Russian occupation, then Belarusians (Litvins), Ukrainians and Poles would not be swearing today. Today, however, Poles still hardly swear, and Slovaks and Czechs do not swear at all.
And this is quite normal, because most peoples of the world do not know swear words - just as the Slavs, Balts, Romans, and Germans did not know them. Their sexual vocabulary is extremely poor (compared to Russian), and many languages do not use sexual themes at all when using foul language. For example, the French “con” conveys the name of both the male and female genital organs with different articles, and the limit of foul language in the French is to simply call the opponent with this word. And only in English language and only at the beginning of the twentieth century, and only in the USA, did the curse “mother fucker” appear, which has no analogue in Europe, and which was a copy of Russian obscenities - it was introduced into the US language by emigrants from Russia (see V. Butler “The Origin of Jargon in the USA", 1981, New York).
Thus, swearing is not at all a “product of Slavic paganism,” for the pagan Slavs did not swear.
It is also a myth that “in ancient Rus' swore." IN Kievan Rus no one swore - they swore only in Muscovy, but that was not Russia.
Historians find the first mention of the Muscovites’ strange habit of using obscenities in 1480, when Prince Vasily III along with prohibition, he demanded that Muscovites stop swearing. Then Ivan the Terrible ordered to “click on the auction” so that the Muscovites “would not swear and would not reproach each other with all sorts of obscene and nasty speeches.”
Then the German traveler Olearius, who arrived in Muscovy, noted with regret the wide prevalence of swearing: “Little children, who do not yet know how to name either God, or mother, or father, already have obscene words on their lips.”
In 1648, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich conceived the idea of “getting rid of the infection” and gave a royal decree so that “they should not sing demonic songs, swear, or use any obscene barking... And if people teach someone to scold someone with swearing and all sorts of barking - and to those people for such opposite Christian law for the fury of being from Us in great disgrace and cruel punishment."
Moscow priest Yakov Krotov notes:
“Throughout the 17th and most of the 18th centuries, Muscovy was calm about swearing. A simple example: near the Savinno-Storozhevsky Zvenigorod Monastery, located three kilometers from Zvenigorod, a stream flows, and in all scribe books, starting from the end of the 16th century, when the first one was compiled, scribes quite normally recorded the name of this stream flowing through the land that belonged to the monastery. The first letter was "p", the second half ended in "omoy". Who came here to wash from Zvenigorod, several kilometers away? Not quite clear. But, one way or another, at the end of the 18th century, when the general survey of Russia was carried out, drawing up full map Russian Empire, by decree of Catherine the Great, all names that contain obscene language and obscene roots are replaced with more euphonious ones. Since then this Zvenigorod stream has also been renamed.”
Until now, on the maps of Muscovy-Russia there were thousands of toponyms and hydronyms created on the basis of swear words.
There was nothing like this at that time either in Belarus-Lithuania or in Rus'-Ukraine then - the people there did not know curse words.
This circumstance could seemingly be explained by the fact that the Belarusians and Ukrainians were never under the Horde, and the Muscovites lived in the Horde for three hundred years, and then seized power in it, annexing the Horde to Muscovy. After all, Soviet historians used to think so: that the Muscovites’ curses were supposedly their response to the “Tatar-Mongol yoke.”
For example, Vladimir Kantor, fiction writer and member of the editorial board Russian magazine Questions of Philosophy recently wrote:
“But in Russia, during the Tatars, the word “eble” appeared, which is a derivative for us, Russian people, understandably, associated with defamation of the mother and so on, in Turkic it simply meant to get married. The Tatar, capturing the girl, said that he was “eble” her, that is, he was taking her. But for any Russian commoner whose daughter, wife, or sister was taken away, he committed violence against a woman, and as a result, this word absolutely acquired the character of rape. What are swear words? This is the language of the raped, that is, of that lower layer who always feels outside the zone of action of high culture and civilization, humiliated, insulted, raped. And like any raped slave, he is ready to use this violence against his comrade, and if it works out, of course, against a noble one.”
At first glance, the version seems foldable. However, she is wrong.
Firstly, the current Tatars of Kazan (then Bulgars) were just like that “languishing from the Tatar yoke” (for Kazan was equally a vassal of the Tatars, like Moscow), but for some reason they did not give birth to any curses to the world.
Secondly, the Tatars of the Horde were not Turks, but were a mixture of Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes. For this reason, they annexed the Finns of Suzdal-Muscovy (Mordovians, Moksha, Erzya, Murom, Merya, Chud, Meshchera, Perm) to the Horde and sought to unite all the Finno-Ugric peoples who left the Volga for Europe, including those who reached Hungary, the people which they considered “ours by right.”
Thirdly, there was no “Tatar yoke”. Moscow paid only a tax to the Tatars (half of which it kept for itself for the labor of collecting it - which is how it rose) and sent its Moscow army to serve in the army of the Horde. It never happened that the Tatars captured Muscovy girls as wives - these are modern inventions. They were captured as slaves during wars, but in the same way, hundreds of thousands of Slavs were captured as slaves by the Muscovites themselves (for example, 300 thousand Belarusians were captured by the Muscovites as slaves in the war of 1654-1657). But a slave is not a wife.
Generally speaking, this whole version of Vladimir Kantor is “sucked up” only on two dubious grounds: the presence in the Turkic language of the word “eble” (to marry) and the myth about the notorious “Tatar yoke”. This is very little, especially since other main swear words in the Russian language remain without explanation. How were they formed?
Although I must note that this hypothesis of Cantor is already a kind of breakthrough in the topic, because earlier Soviet historians generally wrote that the Muscovites simply adopted swear words from the Tatar-Mongols, they say they taught the Muscovites to swear. However, there are no obscenities in either the Turkic language or the Mongolian language.
So, there are two serious circumstances that completely refute Cantor’s hypothesis about the origin of one of the Russian obscenities from Turkic word"eble" (to marry).
1. Excavations by academician Valentin Yanin in Novgorod led in 2006 to the discovery of birch bark letters with mats. They are much older than the arrival of the Tatars in the Suzdal principality. Which puts a BOLD CROSS on the general attempt of historians to link the obscenities of the Muscovites with the language of the Tatars (Turkic).
Moreover, these mats on the birch bark letters of Novgorod are adjacent to elements of Finnish vocabulary - that is, the people who wrote them were not Slavs (colonists encouraged by Rurik, who sailed from Polabye and built Novgorod here), but local semi-Slavicized colonists of Rurik, Finns (or Sami, or miracle, all, muromoy).
2. There is another people in Europe, besides the Muscovites, who have been swearing for a thousand years - and with the SAME RUSSIAN cuss words.
These are Hungarians.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF RUSSIAN MATES
For the first time about Hungarian mats Russian historians They found out quite recently - and were extremely surprised: after all, the Hungarians are not Slavs, but Finno-Ugric peoples. Yes, and we weren’t under any “ Tatar-Mongol yoke", for they left the Volga for Central Europe centuries before the birth of Genghis Khan and Batu. For example, Moscow researcher of the topic Evgeny Petrenko is extremely discouraged by this fact and admits in one of his publications that “this completely confuses the issue of the origin of Russian obscenities.”
In fact, this does not confuse the question, but rather provides a complete answer.
The Hungarians have been using mats absolutely similar to those of Muscovy since the time they came to Europe from the Volga.
It is clear that Cantor’s hypothesis about the origin of one of the Russian mats from the Turkic word “eble” (to marry) is in no way applicable to the Hungarians, because the Turks did not force their girls to marry. And there are no Turks around the Hungarians in Central Europe.
Evgeniy Petrenko notes that the Serbian swear expression “ebene sluntse in pichku” appeared historically recently - only 250 years ago, and was adopted by the Serbs from the Hungarians during the period when Serbia came from the Turkish yoke to the rule of Austria-Hungary under Empress Maria Theresa. The Hungarian chronicles of the Middle Ages are filled with such obscenities that did not exist anywhere else and among no one else around (Slavs, Austrians, Germans, Italians, etc., including Turks). The Hungarian colonial administration then carried them to the Serbs, Hungarian army and the Hungarian aristocracy.
Why are the Hungarians’ swear words absolutely identical to the Muscovite swear words?
There can be only one answer: THESE ARE FINNO-UGRIAN MATS.
Let me remind you that Hungarians, Estonians, Finns and Russians are one and the same Finnish ethnic group. The Russians, however, were partly Slavicized by the priests of Kyiv, who instilled Orthodoxy among them. But studies of the gene pool of the Russian nation, conducted in 2000-2006 by the Russian Academy of Sciences (which we previously described in detail), showed that in terms of genes, Russians are absolutely identical to the Finnish ethnic group: Mordovians, Komi, Estonians, Finns and Hungarians.
Which should not be surprising, since all of Central Russia (historical Muscovy) is the land of the Finnish peoples, and all its toponyms are Finnish: Moscow (of the Moksha people), Ryazan (of the Erzya people), Murom (of the Murom people), Perm (of the Perm people) etc.
The only “blank spot” remains the question of the ancient presence of mats in Estonia and Finland. Judging by the fact that the birch bark letters of Novgorod with mats could most likely be written by the Sami (and not the Chud or Muroma), who also inhabited Estonia and Finland, the Estonians and Finns too must have had mats since ancient times. This nuance needs clarification.
On the other hand, in the Finno-Ugric ethnic groups, it was the Ugrians who could have given birth to mats. That is, the Hungarians and those who remained to live in the lands of the future Muscovy are related peoples to them. The Ugric group of languages today includes only the Hungarian language and the Ob-Ugric Khanty and Mansi. In the past, this group was much more powerful, including, presumably, the Pecheneg people, who went with the Hungarians to Central Europe and along the way settled widely over the Crimea and in the steppes of the Don (they were allegedly exterminated by the Tatars). In Muscovy itself, the main ethnic group was the Mordovian ethnic group Moksha (Moksel in its language), which gave the name to the river Moksva (Moks Moksha + Va water), changed in the Kiev language to the more euphonious “Moscow” for the Slavs. And the Erzya ethnic group (with the capital Erzya and the state Great Erzya, later changed to Ryazan). In the Perm group of Komi and Udmurts, the state of Great Permia stood out. All this is the historical territory of the original distribution of mats.
Thus, the very term “Russian swearing” is absurd. For they are not Russians at all (in the understanding of Rus' as Kyiv State), and Finnish ones. Those who remained in the language of the native Finnish population of Muscovy as subjects of their pre-Slavic language.
ESSENCE OF MATES
What is the essence of Russian obscenities?
It is clear that Russian researchers of the issue have always been confused by the fact that the Russians have mats, while the Slavs and other Indo-Europeans do not have them at all. Therefore, in this matter, Russians have always, under the shadow of some kind of “inferiority complex,” instead of scientific consideration, tried to justify themselves or “make amends.” They tried to drag the Slavs into swearing - they say, this is Slavic paganism. But it didn’t work out - because the Slavs never swear, and the Russians are not Slavs. They tried to show that Russian obscenities were invented for a reason, but in response to the yoke of the Tatars. And it didn’t work out: the Hungarians had exactly the same mats, but they didn’t have any “Tatar yoke”.
In fairness, it should be said that the Russians are truly an unfortunate people of the former Finnish ethnic groups, whose fate over the last thousand years has been simply terrible.
At first, he was conquered as a slave by the younger princes of Kyiv, who simply did not get their principalities in the Rus of Kyiv. Since there were no Slavs here in future Muscovy, the princes and their squads treated the local Finnish population as slaves. Exactly Kyiv princes They introduced serfdom (that is, slavery) in Muscovy, which was wild in Kyiv in relation to the peasants of their own ethnic group. Let me remind you that neither in Ukraine nor in Belarus-Lithuania there was ever serfdom before the Russian occupation of 1795, and besides Muscovy, serfdom existed in Europe only in one place - in Prussia, where, in exactly the same way, the Germans made local foreign Prussians slaves and local Slavs.
Then these Finnish lands enslaved by Kievan Rus fell under the rule of the Horde of Trans-Volga Tatars, whose capital was located near present-day Volgograd. They created the Empire of the Turks and Finno-Ugric peoples, so mentally the Suzdal lands were drawn to the Horde, and not to the Indo-European Rus of Kyiv and Lithuania-Belarus of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the country of the Western Balts). Moreover, the princely elite of the lands of the future Muscovy found in the Horde a very successful justification for their slave-holding power over the local Finnish population: Eastern traditions elevated rulers to the rank of God, which the Europeans never had, including Byzantium and the Russian Orthodox Church of Kyiv, which baptized Rus'.
These two main arguments turned Muscovy away from Rus' and Kyiv forever and created a new eastern type states - a complete satrapy.
Therefore, the Finno-Russians (Muscovites) had every reason to swear at everyone: they lived freely only in their national Finnish states (of which only Finnish place names remained) until the arrival of the Kyiv enslavers. And then came a thousand years of complete slavery: first, slavery as part of Kievan Rus, then the same slavery, but when the Tatar enslavers sat on top of the Kyiv enslavers, and then the enslavers began to be called “Moscow Sovereigns.” Until 1864 (the abolition of serfdom), the people remained in the state of enslaved natives, that is, slaves, and the aristocracy despised them with the same degree of contempt as the British and French despised the African blacks they conquered in the 19th century.
Yes, from such a thousand-year oppression of Kievan Rus, the Horde and then Muscovy-Russia, there is enough hatred in the Finnish people to give birth to obscenities - like native slang of foul language towards the oppressors.
But... We see that these mats existed among the Finno-Ugrians even before their enslavement by their neighbors from the West and the East. And they exist among the Hungarians, who very successfully escaped from the Volga to Europe, avoiding the fate of their fellow tribesmen.
This means that the mats of the Finno-Ugric peoples did not originate as a response to their enslavers, but as something internal, purely primordial and without any external influence. Because the Finno-Ugric people ALWAYS swore.
Some researchers express the following point of view: swearing is part of some mystical culture, in a series of conspiracies or curses. Including some (A. Filippov, S.S. Drozd) find that a number of obscene curses essentially mean not something offensive, but a wish for death. For example, going to “n...”, as they write, means the desire to go to where you were born, that is, to leave life again into oblivion.
Is it so? I doubt.
Did the Finno-Ugric peoples in the past, during the era of the birth of swearing, have such a mystical culture in which sexual themes of swearing would have been used? Personally, it’s hard for me to imagine this. Yes, sexual themes are present among all ancient peoples - but as symbols of fertility. But in our case we are talking about something completely different. And there is simply no “mystical culture” or “pagan cults” here.
It seems to me that the Moscow priest Yakov Krotov finds the essence of the obscenities most correctly:
“One of the modern Orthodox publicists, Abbot Veniamin Novik, published several articles against foul language, against swearing. In these articles, he emphasizes that swearing is associated with materialism. There is a kind of play on words here, with dialogue. “Why should release, and swearing, foul language, this is often justified as an emotional release, have to happen,” writes Abbot Veniamin, “at the expense of other people? A swearer certainly needs someone to hear him. Swearing is, first of all, a symptom evolutionary underdevelopment. Biologists know that in the animal world there is a pronounced connection between aggressiveness and sexuality, and some “especially gifted” (hegumen Veniamin writes sarcastically) individuals use their genitals to intimidate the enemy. And some no less gifted representatives of the homo sapiens family do this "It's the same verbally. Exhibitionists are just more consistent." This is a refutation of foul language and a rebuff to it from the standpoint of modern, good educated person».
Exactly.
The Indo-Europeans did not swear because their ancestral ethnic group was formed as more progressive and excluded in communication the ape habits of “using your genitals to intimidate the enemy.” But the ancestral ethnic group of the Finno-Ugrians, who are not Indo-Europeans, was formed in a different way - and used monkey habits.
That’s the whole difference: Russians and Hungarians swear because they are not Indo-Europeans. And because their ancestors developed differently than the Indo-Europeans - in a completely different cultural environment.
Moreover, the use of swear words in communication necessarily retrospectively means that in the distant past the ancestors of Russians and Hungarians used these swear words as an illustration of ACTIONS - that is, the Finno-Ugric people used to show their genitals to their opponent as a SIGN OF INSULT. And various other indecent ACTIONS.
Does it seem wild? But this is no more savage than the very fact of almost COMPLETE approval of obscenities in Russia - primarily by cultural figures. How, for example, should we relate to such statements: GALINA ZHENVOVA, Chief Editor The joint editorial board of Gubernskie Izvestia shares with readers: “I have a positive attitude towards swearing. Russian people have two ways of letting off steam. The first is vodka, the second is swearing. Let it be better to swear.”
Why don’t other nations have “ways to let off steam” only in the form of vodka and swearing? And why is swearing “better” than vodka?
WHAT IS MAT BETTER THAN VODKA?
In Russia they don’t understand that swearing destroys the foundations of Society. Swearing, being an animal behavior of “using one’s genitals to intimidate the enemy,” is already antisocial. But swearing has evolved compared to animals: the very name “swearing” means an insult to the opponent’s mother in sexual violence on the part of the speaker. What animals don't have.
For Finno-Ugric peoples (Russians and Hungarians), this is perhaps their own normal local traditional form of communication. But for Indo-Europeans this is unacceptable.
Each of us was a child and knows that all sorts of nasty things easily penetrate into children's brains. Likewise, the swear words of the Hungarians and Russians were introduced into Europe not through our adult Europeans, but through children who had contact with the children of these peoples who spoke swear words. This fact alone shows that swearing enters the minds of people through the corruption of our children and, in essence, differs little from child pornography or the corruption of minors.
Let them always use obscenities in Russia. But why should we be like them? Our ancestors did not know these foreign obscenities.
It is very bad when sexual education of children begins with their knowledge of obscenities and their meaning. This is exactly what happened to me: teenagers taught me swear words and explained their meaning - they were the discoverers for me of the mystery of the relationship between a man and a woman - through swear words.
This is fine? This is absolutely abnormal.
Therefore, the editor's opinion seems completely erroneous Russian newspaper about the fact that swearing better than vodka. Our children don’t drink vodka at the age of 10, but learn swearing. For what?
Russian publicists say with pride and joy that Russian obscenities completely replace any transmission of thoughts and concepts. Olga Kvirkvelia, the head of the Russian educational Christian center “Faith and Thought”, a Catholic, said about swearing in a Radio Liberty program in February 2002: “In principle, swearing is like a good swearing, real, not the street one that we hear today, it’s just a sacred language with which you can really tell absolutely everything. I got carried away with swearing when I accidentally heard Novgorod region, in the village, how grandmother explained to grandfather how to plant cucumbers. There were only non-obscene pretexts, which is understandable perfectly. She didn’t swear, she very kindly, very friendly explained how to plant cucumbers correctly. This is a language that, unfortunately, we have practically lost and turned into something vulgar, disgusting, vile and bad. Actually this is not true. And this reflects very deep layers of consciousness.”
I'm shocked. Why can’t grandma talk normally about planting cucumbers in normal human terms, but replaces them all with sexual terms? Olga Kvirkvelia sees this in “sacred language.” What is “sacred” about it, besides the animal display of its genitals?
She also says that “This is a language that, unfortunately, we have practically lost.” It turns out that the Finno-Ugric language of Russians and Hungarians is the language of complete obscenities, where all concepts are replaced by them?
Unfortunately, everything bad and nasty tends to spread around like a disease. So Russia brought its obscenities to the neighboring peoples it conquered: Belarusians, Ukrainians, Balts, Caucasians, peoples of Central Asia, who speak their own language, but insert Finnish obscenities every other word. So Finnish " sacred words"became the everyday vocabulary of distant Uzbeks. Moreover, they began to swear in the USA - already in English, and it is quite normal in the film “Police Academy” to see a plot, the action of which takes a long time to unfold against the backdrop of Russian writing. telephone booth inscriptions made from the familiar three letters “x..”. Who wrote it there? Yankees?
But there is nothing like this anywhere else in the world: writing obscenities on the walls. And even Vysotsky noticed: in public French toilets there are inscriptions in Russian. Writing obscenities on a wall is tantamount to the animal behavior of displaying your genitals. This is what the “sacred” eastern neighbors do, like monkeys. This is the exhibitionism of our eastern neighbor.
Is this the norm of behavior for us Europeans, including Belarusians and Ukrainians? Of course not, because we cannot express anything sacred, that is, sacred, simply because our ancestors did not know curse words. These swear words are foreign and foreign to us.
Our European languages have enough means to express any concept without obscenities, just as there are no obscenities in the works of Lev Tolstoy. He did not use the “sacred language”, but created literary masterpieces of world culture and the Russian language. Which already means that the Russian language will not lose anything without these obscenities. But he will only get richer.