Китч

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

Does anybody know the history of the word Kitsch? I thought it was a rather new word. Kochergin uses it to describe paintings sold on the street in the years after WWII. He can of course use the word even if it wasn't used back then, but still - was it?

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[radolini.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch

[obsmirnova.livejournal.com]

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Китч

[centralasian.livejournal.com]

"Кич" or "китч" has entered the Russian language long before WWII, in was already widely used during the October Revolution (end of 1910-s), and was most likely known even earlier. Have a look at the wikipedia piece (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%87#.D0.98.D1.81.D1.82.D0.BE.D1.80.D0.B8.D1.8F) for the basic info, and this article (http://ec-dejavu.ru/t/Triteness_a.html) is an informative intro to the subject and has many more references (including, apparently, to a whole book about this word/concept in Russian).

[elvit.livejournal.com]

If you read in Russian, you can also read a discussion about китч in ru_etymology -
http://ru-etymology.livejournal.com/265885.html (btw a very good community)