9 ms·

The history and context of Aleksandr Afanasev’s obscene Russian folktales

51 points by prismatic 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
That bawdy tales circulated in the 19th century is something we know not only for Russians, but also from the dozens of peoples who live under Russian occupation. The word-lists compiled by 19th-century European linguists doing fieldwork in the Volga-Kama area or Siberia contain words like “whore”, “dick”, or even “clitoris” and we get some transcriptions of tales where all these words are put to use, revealing that life was not as prim and staid as one might assume. In fact, due to Soviet-era and post-Soviet censorship where dictionaries compiled for these languages were usually forced to leave out the bad words, it is the 19th-century sources that we rely on for them.
- fuzztester 3y ago
  >That bawdy tales circulated in the 19th century is something we know Gadzooks! Balzac? Rabelais? Chaucer? Turn. Grave.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    All French or English writers you list. The context of this HN post is 19th-century Russia.
    - fuzztester 3y ago
      Good catch, by logic, but you're wrong, in reality: The mistake is mine, though. I did not make my point clear enough. My intention, by saying gadzooks (a word from an earlier century, that I have read in historical novels, such as by Georgette Heyer - I'm not a scholar), was to express surprise, and to indicate that bawdy writing was not only from the 19th century, but existed much prior to that. Hence the references I gave. And they're not even very old. Bawdy writing probably existed from hundreds, if not thousands, of years earlier. And bawdiness is human and global, dude, I mean, tovarisch ;-). No need to limit it to Russia.
drewcoo 3y ago
This is the book in English: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3186233-russian-secret-tales?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=r3Sj3eYD7x&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3186233-russian-secret-t... Out of print and hard to find. Naughty illustration on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Secret-Tales-Folktales-annotations/dp/B000GLWOHU https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Secret-Tales-Folktales-annota...
david927 3y ago
The article's first paragraph is golden Rudeness has consequences in fairy tales. Strangers met on the road may be more than they seem, so politeness is prudent. If a farmer is working his land and a passing old man asks what he’s sowing, he had better not answer, “I’m sowing cocks!” if he doesn’t want three-foot-tall phalluses sprouting in his field at harvest time. This is the lesson of “A Crop of Cocks,” one of more than a hundred obscene folktales compiled by the nineteenth-century Russian ethnographer Aleksandr Afanasev.
- rootw0rm 3y ago
  How times have changed. I imagine pristine specimens of the rare field cock would fetch a good sum these days.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    For other veterans here from Slashdot, did this comment not evoke strong memories of the “Penisbird Enterprises” copypasta?
ROTMetro 3y ago
It makes me so sad that Russia has chosen to not be part of the western world going forward. Such a needless divorce created by Russia for what, so that they can kill their 'brotherly' slavic neighbors? I always wanted to see the Hermitage. I have Russia adjacent ancestry (from talking to Russians online to try and trace it I was told I am jewish and not Russian and was then told in very crappy ways that the two are very much different). The old Russia literature is still great and of huge influence in the west and I am still very much interested in old Russia no matter that new Russia has chosen to extract themselves from the western world I live in and that embraced my great great grandparents when Russia rejected them.
- chasil 3y ago
  Well, the Russians that I know who live here in Iowa have made no such decision. The many nights that I have spent with them and the Ukrainians that have been drawn into their circle of friendship have an insoluble quality in the face of the catastrophic choices made by their countries. "That's why we left." Yes, I hope that these countries grow some political leadership that has more subtlety and ability to compromise. No, my friends had nothing to do with the Holodomor, the ceding of Crimea, the unacceptable invasions, or the resistance. These are stressful talks for friends. We try to avoid them.
- cpursley 3y ago
  Your two paragraphs seem to be at odds with each other. You’re interested in old Russia but upset they are not becoming homogenized by the West? Also, the world didn’t wholesale reject US culture after the needless destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya and friends (just some recent examples).
- 13of40 3y ago
  So go see the Hermitage. You probably need to spend more for the visa and transit through Turkey or Egypt, but odds are you aren't significant enough on the world stage to get picked up and harrassed for it. There's always been a split between what Putin is doing in his little tower in the Kremlin and what a normal person is doing walking through Kolomenskoye Park.
- 3y ago
ConanRus 3y ago
[dead]
gweinberg 3y ago
Some folklore tales attempt to teach moral lessons, but a pretty big fraction of them are pretty nihilistic: the "heroes" do some pretty horrible shit, and get away with it and even get praised for it. In the case of the crop of cocks,the O.P. seems to think the farmer id being punished for his rudeness, but I think he's actually being rather polite. I think "I'm sowing cocks" is the delicate way of saying, "None of your Business, M[y] F[riend]."
chetkaya-rech 3y ago
[dead]

51 points by prismatic 3y ago

That bawdy tales circulated in the 19th century is something we know not only for Russians, but also from the dozens of peoples who live under Russian occupation. The word-lists compiled by 19th-century European linguists doing fieldwork in the Volga-Kama area or Siberia contain words like “whore”, “dick”, or even “clitoris” and we get some transcriptions of tales where all these words are put to use, revealing that life was not as prim and staid as one might assume. In fact, due to Soviet-era and post-Soviet censorship where dictionaries compiled for these languages were usually forced to leave out the bad words, it is the 19th-century sources that we rely on for them.

fuzztester 3y ago
>That bawdy tales circulated in the 19th century is something we know Gadzooks! Balzac? Rabelais? Chaucer? Turn. Grave.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  All French or English writers you list. The context of this HN post is 19th-century Russia.
  - fuzztester 3y ago
    Good catch, by logic, but you're wrong, in reality: The mistake is mine, though. I did not make my point clear enough. My intention, by saying gadzooks (a word from an earlier century, that I have read in historical novels, such as by Georgette Heyer - I'm not a scholar), was to express surprise, and to indicate that bawdy writing was not only from the 19th century, but existed much prior to that. Hence the references I gave. And they're not even very old. Bawdy writing probably existed from hundreds, if not thousands, of years earlier. And bawdiness is human and global, dude, I mean, tovarisch ;-). No need to limit it to Russia.

drewcoo 3y ago

This is the book in English: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3186233-russian-secret-tales?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=r3Sj3eYD7x&rank=1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3186233-russian-secret-t... Out of print and hard to find. Naughty illustration on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Secret-Tales-Folktales-annotations/dp/B000GLWOHU https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Secret-Tales-Folktales-annota...

david927 3y ago

The article's first paragraph is golden Rudeness has consequences in fairy tales. Strangers met on the road may be more than they seem, so politeness is prudent. If a farmer is working his land and a passing old man asks what he’s sowing, he had better not answer, “I’m sowing cocks!” if he doesn’t want three-foot-tall phalluses sprouting in his field at harvest time. This is the lesson of “A Crop of Cocks,” one of more than a hundred obscene folktales compiled by the nineteenth-century Russian ethnographer Aleksandr Afanasev.

rootw0rm 3y ago
How times have changed. I imagine pristine specimens of the rare field cock would fetch a good sum these days.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  For other veterans here from Slashdot, did this comment not evoke strong memories of the “Penisbird Enterprises” copypasta?

ROTMetro 3y ago

It makes me so sad that Russia has chosen to not be part of the western world going forward. Such a needless divorce created by Russia for what, so that they can kill their 'brotherly' slavic neighbors? I always wanted to see the Hermitage. I have Russia adjacent ancestry (from talking to Russians online to try and trace it I was told I am jewish and not Russian and was then told in very crappy ways that the two are very much different). The old Russia literature is still great and of huge influence in the west and I am still very much interested in old Russia no matter that new Russia has chosen to extract themselves from the western world I live in and that embraced my great great grandparents when Russia rejected them.

chasil 3y ago
Well, the Russians that I know who live here in Iowa have made no such decision. The many nights that I have spent with them and the Ukrainians that have been drawn into their circle of friendship have an insoluble quality in the face of the catastrophic choices made by their countries. "That's why we left." Yes, I hope that these countries grow some political leadership that has more subtlety and ability to compromise. No, my friends had nothing to do with the Holodomor, the ceding of Crimea, the unacceptable invasions, or the resistance. These are stressful talks for friends. We try to avoid them.
cpursley 3y ago
Your two paragraphs seem to be at odds with each other. You’re interested in old Russia but upset they are not becoming homogenized by the West? Also, the world didn’t wholesale reject US culture after the needless destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya and friends (just some recent examples).
13of40 3y ago
So go see the Hermitage. You probably need to spend more for the visa and transit through Turkey or Egypt, but odds are you aren't significant enough on the world stage to get picked up and harrassed for it. There's always been a split between what Putin is doing in his little tower in the Kremlin and what a normal person is doing walking through Kolomenskoye Park.
3y ago

ConanRus 3y ago

[dead]

gweinberg 3y ago

Some folklore tales attempt to teach moral lessons, but a pretty big fraction of them are pretty nihilistic: the "heroes" do some pretty horrible shit, and get away with it and even get praised for it. In the case of the crop of cocks,the O.P. seems to think the farmer id being punished for his rudeness, but I think he's actually being rather polite. I think "I'm sowing cocks" is the delicate way of saying, "None of your Business, M[y] F[riend]."

chetkaya-rech 3y ago

[dead]