Moscow Times article

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Thanks to both med99 and oblomov_jerusal for corrected versions of this text :) I really can't do Cyrillic on my computer (well I can, but it's not very practical as I don't know which keys are which), so it's really appreciated!

A Short History of the Russian Political Joke

By Michele A. Berdy

А глаза такие добрые: But he had the kindest eyes! (Punch line from a joke about Lenin.)

Russian jokes come in all varieties, from the частушка (chastushka, a four-line, rhyming verse), to the байка (a tall tale), to elaborate comic stories that lead inexorably to the punch line. Perhaps because русские анекдоты (Russian jokes) come out of the storytelling tradition, rather than the vaudeville-Hollywood-sitcom tradition, there isn't an exact Russian word for punch line. You can call it the развязка ("the denouement").

Punch line or no, of all these traditions, I revere Russians for their genius for topical political jokes -- the ones that appear overnight about an event or political figure. Take this one that appeared during the recent "banking crisis": Из заявлений Центробанка: Нет никаких причин для паники. В России нет никакого банковского кризиса. Выполняется обычная штатная процедура изъятия денег у населения. (From an announcement by the Central Bank: There is no reason for panic. There is no banking crisis in Russia whatsoever. We are simply carrying out the usual standard procedure for expropriating money from the population.) This is what Russians call смех сквозь слёзы (laughter through tears). I call it brilliant.

The Stalin jokes often deal with his cruelty. Lenin jokes often make fun of his accent or debunk the myth of Lenin as a kindly man. Here's a slightly sanitized version of a famous joke: Внучка попросила бабушку, чтобы та рассказала ей, какой дедушка Ленин был хороший. -- Был 1920-й год. Холод, голод. Я шла по улице, а навстречу мне шёл Ленин и ел пирожок. Я ему говорю, мол, дай, пожалуйста, пирожка. А он мне: "Иди ты ..." А глаза такие добрые! (A little girl asks her grandmother to tell her how kind Grandfather Lenin was. "It was 1920 -- famine, freezing cold. I was walking along the street when I saw Lenin walking toward me, eating a pie. I asked him for some of his pie. And he said, 'Go to hell.' But he had the kindest eyes!")

Khrushchev jokes often involve corn and other harebrained schemes. Brezhnev jokes mostly make fun of him in his later years, when he was not quite all there: Идёт Брежнев в пасху по Кремлю, его приветствуют: "Христос Воскрес!", он кивнул и идет дальше. Снова: "Христос Воскрес!", Брежнев отвечает: "Я знаю, мне уже доложили." (At Easter, Brezhnev is walking in the Kremlin when he is greeted with the traditional, "Christ is risen!" Brezhnev nods and walks on. Again someone says, "Christ is risen!" And Brezhnev answers: "I know, it's already been reported to me.")

Gorbachev jokes play on his accent, his policy of glasnost and his anti-drinking campaign. Yeltsin jokes play on his personal pro-drinking campaign, as well as his language tick of "you know." And Putin jokes? There aren't many. Maybe it's just not funny anymore. But there is an old joke (анекдот с бородой -- literally "a joke with a beard") about the ruling styles of Soviet and Russian leaders that has been updated to include Putin:

Ехали вожди в поезде. Вдруг поезд остановился. Впереди отсутствовала железная дорога. Ленин: "Надо устроить коммунистический субботник." Сталин: "Чтобы быстро рельсы были -- или расстреляю!" Хрущёв: "Давайте разберём сзади и положим спереди." Брежнев: "Давайте качать вагон и гудеть -- делать вид, что едем." Горбачёв: "Об этом надо сказать открыто!" Ельцин: "Давайте, понимаешь, продадим нефть за границу и купим рельсы." Путин: "Это террористы!"

(The leaders are in a train when it suddenly stops. There is no track ahead. Lenin says: We should organize a voluntary communist workday! Stalin: If that track isn't laid soon, I'll call the firing squad! Khrushchev: Let's take the track behind apart and put it up ahead. Brezhnev: Let's shake the train and hoot -- and pretend that we are moving forward. Gorbachev: We have to speak openly about this! Yeltsin: Let's sell oil overseas and buy the track -- you know? Putin: Terrorists!)

Sadly, the "train with no track" scenario is all too fitting a metaphor for Russia's development.

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator.