Îäèí àìåðèêàíñüêèé áëî´åð êóìåäíî ïðî Õàìà (ë, àíãë)
03/12/2010 | Ïàí Êîöüêèé
http://trueslant.com/markadomanis/2010/03/12/the-missing-gs-of-victor-yanukovich/
(Âñ³ ï³äêðåñëåííÿ ìî¿. ÏÊ)
The missing ‘g’s of Victor Yanukovich
By MARK ADOMANIS
One day, many moons ago, when I was an undergraduate, Russian class was devoted to preparing for the upcoming oral exam. It was pretty standard fare: we had to be able to summarize a short story (if I recall correctly it was “The Meek One” by Dostoyevsky) we had read, and then give our opinions about it. In these situations one typically has a large number of ready-made stock phrases and sentence fragments pulled from the text, but, because the words are unfamiliar and the constructions rather advanced, what comes out of your mouth, at least in the initial stages of preparation, is not the beautiful prose of Dostoyevsky, or whatever other poor author whose work is being scrutinized, but a disjointed mess of semi-literate Russian replete with inaccurate endings, stress on the wrong syllables, and, to top it all off, a horrific American accent.
One of the people in the class (really, it wasn’t me!) was rushing through their synopsis when they said something about “mnoho prestuplenii.” Our teacher, who really is one of the nicest and most sincere people I’ve ever met, inadvertently burst into laughter. Everyone sort of stopped and looked around unaware of what could possibly be so funny. “You sound like Gorbachev!” She chuckled . “Like Gorabachev? How?” She then went into an extended explanation about the “southern” accent in Russian, and its unfortunate tendencyto make its “g”s sound like “h”s, she even rattled off a sentence to show off the flaws of poor Gorby’s farm-boy speak “Dorohie tovarishi! Doroha k kommunizmu, kotoruiu podhotovit partia nasha, osnovana ha technolohii.”*
Why do I go into this extended rambling? Surely my rank egotism and my penchant for nostalgia play a role, but I was actually reminded of the missing “g” by watching this, a press conference between Vladimir Putin and the newly elected president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich. I will fully admit that my Russian is very far from perfect, but it does seem odd that a person who bases so much of his political persona on the Russian langage (Yanukovich’s party is basically identity-politics for Russian-speakers in Ukraine) makes such an utter hash of it. I actually burst out laughing a few times hearing some of the absurd pronunciations offered by Yanukovich, and I’m an idiot American who must make frequently use of his Oxford Russian dictionary. I’d bet pennies on the dollar that Putin and his cronies, while smiling for the cameras and making all of the right gestures, were thinking to themselves “Holy crap, what an idiot this guy is! The Ukrainians elected this guy? What a hick!”
Is this of pressing and vital international importance? No, I suppose not (it’s a slow news day!). It does seem to me to be an important detail, however, and one that is scrupulously avoided in the mainstream media coverage of Ukrainian-Russian relations. Remember all of the breathless US media coverage of George W. Bush’s war with the English language. Now, was it overplayed? Yes. But was it an issue of some political relevance? Absolutely, not simply for what it revealed about Bush himself, but for what it revealed about identity politics and regional divisions in America. I guess I just think it’s worth noting when a guy who is as pro-Russian and pro-Russian Language as Yanukovich ends up sounding like a farmer with mud still on his boots.
* It just occurred to me that Gorby would have consistently mispronounced “glasnost.” That seems darkly humorous, for some reason. “Hlastnost” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?
(Âñ³ ï³äêðåñëåííÿ ìî¿. ÏÊ)
The missing ‘g’s of Victor Yanukovich
By MARK ADOMANIS
One day, many moons ago, when I was an undergraduate, Russian class was devoted to preparing for the upcoming oral exam. It was pretty standard fare: we had to be able to summarize a short story (if I recall correctly it was “The Meek One” by Dostoyevsky) we had read, and then give our opinions about it. In these situations one typically has a large number of ready-made stock phrases and sentence fragments pulled from the text, but, because the words are unfamiliar and the constructions rather advanced, what comes out of your mouth, at least in the initial stages of preparation, is not the beautiful prose of Dostoyevsky, or whatever other poor author whose work is being scrutinized, but a disjointed mess of semi-literate Russian replete with inaccurate endings, stress on the wrong syllables, and, to top it all off, a horrific American accent.
One of the people in the class (really, it wasn’t me!) was rushing through their synopsis when they said something about “mnoho prestuplenii.” Our teacher, who really is one of the nicest and most sincere people I’ve ever met, inadvertently burst into laughter. Everyone sort of stopped and looked around unaware of what could possibly be so funny. “You sound like Gorbachev!” She chuckled . “Like Gorabachev? How?” She then went into an extended explanation about the “southern” accent in Russian, and its unfortunate tendencyto make its “g”s sound like “h”s, she even rattled off a sentence to show off the flaws of poor Gorby’s farm-boy speak “Dorohie tovarishi! Doroha k kommunizmu, kotoruiu podhotovit partia nasha, osnovana ha technolohii.”*
Why do I go into this extended rambling? Surely my rank egotism and my penchant for nostalgia play a role, but I was actually reminded of the missing “g” by watching this, a press conference between Vladimir Putin and the newly elected president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich. I will fully admit that my Russian is very far from perfect, but it does seem odd that a person who bases so much of his political persona on the Russian langage (Yanukovich’s party is basically identity-politics for Russian-speakers in Ukraine) makes such an utter hash of it. I actually burst out laughing a few times hearing some of the absurd pronunciations offered by Yanukovich, and I’m an idiot American who must make frequently use of his Oxford Russian dictionary. I’d bet pennies on the dollar that Putin and his cronies, while smiling for the cameras and making all of the right gestures, were thinking to themselves “Holy crap, what an idiot this guy is! The Ukrainians elected this guy? What a hick!”
Is this of pressing and vital international importance? No, I suppose not (it’s a slow news day!). It does seem to me to be an important detail, however, and one that is scrupulously avoided in the mainstream media coverage of Ukrainian-Russian relations. Remember all of the breathless US media coverage of George W. Bush’s war with the English language. Now, was it overplayed? Yes. But was it an issue of some political relevance? Absolutely, not simply for what it revealed about Bush himself, but for what it revealed about identity politics and regional divisions in America. I guess I just think it’s worth noting when a guy who is as pro-Russian and pro-Russian Language as Yanukovich ends up sounding like a farmer with mud still on his boots.
* It just occurred to me that Gorby would have consistently mispronounced “glasnost.” That seems darkly humorous, for some reason. “Hlastnost” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?
³äïîâ³ä³
2010.03.12 | Ïàí Êîöüêèé
² ùå, â³ä òîãî ñàìîãî àâòîðà (ë, àíãë)
http://trueslant.com/markadomanis/2010/02/15/more-ukraine-foolishness-from-the-financial-times/(Âñ³ ï³äêðåñëåííÿ ìî¿. ÏÊ)
More Ukraine foolishness from the Financial Times
By MARK ADOMANIS
The circumstances of the Orange Revolution – the protests, the blatant foreign involvement by Russia and the west and the subsequent turmoil – made it easy for Moscow to portray democracy as a mess. But this time it could be different. If Mr Yanukovich can create a stability – a big if – and generate economic recovery – an even bigger if – it will be harder for Mr Putin to argue Russia has nothing to learn from Ukraine.
If we’re going to get into completely improbable hypotheticals about Ukraine, why stop with political stability and economic growth? I mean, that’s setting the bar far too low! If Mr. Yanukovich can invent cold fusion – a big if- and magically teleport the country to the equator – an even bigger if- Ukraine won’t be dependent on Russian natural gas and will have a climate much more conducive to agriculture. Universal peace and justice will reign, also.
I mean really, has the European debt crisis gotten so bad that they’ve been reduced to huffing ether over at the FT’s offices? Or did they wake up this morning and accidentally think it was April 1? Was this piece actually filed back in February 2005 and, after all the “Yushenkos” were changed to “Yanukoviches,” simply posted with a new time-stamp? The idea that, four years from now, Vladimir Putin will be sitting in his Kremlin office quivering in fear at the superior governance and economic performance of the Ukraine is so laughably absurd, so utterly and entirely ludicrous, that one is forced to wonder whether the article was not, as it appeared to be, highbrow political analysis but actually a piece of the sort of tongue-in-cheek absurdist humor at which the Brits so excel (think of Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch, only replace “parrot” with “the Ukrainian economy.” “No no the Ukrainian economy’s not dead, it’s just resting.” “Resting?” “Yeah remarkable, innit, that Ukrainian economy!”)
Ukraine is one tiny step away from a sovereign debt default, and has all but admitted that the only way it will pay back its IMF loans is by firing up the printing presses. Its primary export industry (steel) is extremely vulnerable to low-cost competition from Chinese firms and, in order to prevent another gas shut off, it will likely have to give up control of its state-owned pipeline network (one of the few reliable sources of funds for the budget). Furthermore Ukraine’s political system is ossified to the point of caricature, and its new president is a half literate ex-convict whom roughly half the country despises. This is the makings of a profound challenge to the Kremlin? Really?
It’s pretty clear by now that Yanukovich isn’t going to be purely a Kremlin stooge and that he won the election fairly – for this we can surely be thankful. But it is a gargantuan leap of logic (really a leap of faith) to suggest that not only will Yanukovich not be a Kremlin patsy, but that he will also be such an effective, popular, and transformational leader that he will drive the Russian political system into crisis and force it to liberalize.
Yanukovich is what he has always been: a mediocre Kuchma-era hack who, precisely because of his mediocrity, will avoid doing anything noteworthy or interesting. I could see him gaining a modicum of popularity since he is assuming office when the economy appears to have (hopefully!) reached its nadir, and he could hardly mismanage Ukraine’s foreign policy any more catastrophically than Yushenko managed to, but if you are counting on him to simultaneously save Ukraine and democratize Russia…well, good luck with that.
2010.03.13 | Mercury
Ïðèñê³ïëèâèé ÿêèé öåé Mark Adomanis! ×óäîâî íàïèñàâ!