Laughing Under the Covers: Russian Oral Jokes

[pboily]

http://members.cox.net/marperak/jokes/

This could go under Humour & Jokes, but I wanted to focus on the role of humour and the oral tradition in dictatorships.

This collection of Russian orally circulated jokes is aimed at acquainting English-speaking readers with an amazing phenomenon which probably had no exact equivalent in the entire history of the humankind. During the seventy-three years of the communist sway over the giant country they named the USSR, an unprecedented effort had been sustained by the ruling communist Party apparat to suppress each and every manifestation of free thinking, however faint, and to overwhelm the minds and souls of the people by the unrelenting din of the propaganda drums. The population of the largest country on the globe had been deprived of every source of information and fed disinformation on a scale not seen ever before, either in scope or in its complete disregard of facts.

[...]

In that smothering air of the ubiquitous disinformation, lies, boasting, and slander, supported by the never relaxing hand of the dreadful KGB, the only outlet for the people's self-expression had become the world of anekdoty. Before 1917, this Russian word (its singular form is anekdot, and the plural one is anekdoty) had the same meaning as its equivalent anecdote has in English. According to the American Heritage dictionary, anecdote is either a) 'a short account of some interesting or humorous incident, or b) secret or hitherto undivulged particulars of history or biography.' However, after 1917, the word anekdoty has acquired in the USSR a new meaning. Rather than denoting accounts of a real event, it now referred to invented jokes which propagated via word of mouth. A special place among these jokes belonged to numerous satirical pieces with political connotation, usually deriding the official communist propaganda.

I dare to say that only a few other languages and cultures can compete with the Russian language and the underground culture in the USSR during the years of the communist rule, in regard to the oral underground jokes, with their richness, scope, ingenuity and wit, many of such jokes revealing in a highly compressed form the feelings, opinions, desires, and expectations of the oppressed and suppressed people of what used to be the Soviet Union.

The number of anekdoty has never been counted, but beyond any doubt they number in thousands. Every event, be it the next campaign by the official press against the vicious imperialists and warmongers, or the replacement of the General Secretary of the communist Party, or the newest report by the Central Statistical Authority on the unbelievable success of the agriculture in the country, immediately led to the instant and spontaneous appearance of a series of new anekdoty, which, quite contrary to the official line, revealed the actual attitude of "Masses" to the disgusting reality.

[...]

For many years, telling an anekdot, even on a person-to-person basis, entailed the risk of being jailed for the so called "anti-Soviet propaganda".

Nevertheless, the "omniscient" KGB could never suppress the anekdoty. Their authors remained unknown. A new anekdot, appearing overnight, would spread with the speed of light all over the country. Apparently, these tiny jewels of wit underwent the process of a stringent selection, the weaker ones dying on the first or second leg, and the really witty and apt ones, being refined and sometimes modified in the process of transmission from mouth to mouth, becoming known the same day in Moscow, Kiev, and Vladivostok.

Examples:
============================================

Ivanov applied to the Communist Party. The party committee conducts an interview.
"Comrade Ivanov, do you smoke?"
"Yes, I do a little."
"Do you know that comrade Lenin did not smoke and advised other communists not to smoke?"
"If comrade Lenin said so, I shall cease smoking."
"Do you drink?"
"Yes, a little."
"Comrade Lenin strongly condemned drunkenness."
"Then I shall cease drinking."
"Comrade Ivanov, what about women?"
"A little...."
"Do you know that comrade Lenin strongly condemned amoral behavior?"
"If comrade Lenin condemned, I shall not love them any longer."
"Comrade Ivanov, will you be ready to sacrifice your life for the Party?"
"Of course. Who needs such life?"

============================================

A Polish tourist comes back home after visiting the USSR. He carries two very large and heavy suitcases. On his wrist is a new Soviet-made watch. He tells the customs man: "This is a new Soviet watch. It's a wonder unknown in the capitalist countries. You see, it shows time, the rate of your pulse beats, the phases of the Moon, the weather in Warsaw, Moscow, and New York, and more and more!" "Yes, it's a wonder," the customs man agrees. "And what is it you have in these big suitcases?" "Oh, it's just the batteries for that watch."

============================================

The government is discussing what to do to ensure sufficient supply of food. One minister suggests, "Let's make war to the USA. They will defeat us and then they will feed us." Another minister replies, "Don't you know what dunderheads are our generals? What if they defeat the Americans? How shall we than solve the food problem?"

============================================

A delegation of foreign communists came to see a Moscow kindergarten. Before they came, the kids were instructed to answer every question by the visitors with just one sentence, "In the USSR everything is the best in the world." The visitors came and asked their questions:
"Children, do you like your kindergarten?"
"In the USSR everything is the best in the world!" the kids shouted.
"And what about the food you get?"
"In the USSR everything is the best in the world!"
"Do you like your toys?"
"In the USSR everything is the best in the world!"
At that, the smallest boy in the group started crying.
"Misha, why are you crying? What happened?"
"I wa-a-a-nt to go to the USSR!"

===========================================

Imagine living in a society where the retelling of a joke could entail prison or gulag time... Imagine unknowingly telling the anekdoty to an undercover NKVD/KGB agent?

Fascinating read.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I love those sort of jokes.

 

[emzie]

Facinating, yes. But was "Laughing Under the Covers: Russian Oral Jokes" a double entendre?

 

[pboily]

I wish I could claim such witticisms for myself, but that was the name of the translation...

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
All Eastbloc countries had them. Often even called them anekdoty.

 

[garric]

I don't get what the point this writer is having by calling them "anekdoty"... which merely translates to "anecdotes". Why doesn't he just write "anectodes"? It's a real word, a real English word that is translated and means the same thing, dammit!

 

[Winner]

http://members.cox.net/marperak/jokes/

This could go under Humour & Jokes, but I wanted to focus on the role of humour and the oral tradition in dictatorships.

...

Imagine living in a society where the retelling of a joke could entail prison or gulag time... Imagine unknowingly telling the anekdoty to an undercover NKVD/KGB agent?

Fascinating read.

I don't have to imagine that.

The fact is that humour was the only "defense" people had. They couldn't do anything about the regime, so they at least mocked it. I know tons of such jokes myself, unfortunately, I doubt I'd be able to translate them properly

 

[pboily]

@garric:

Before 1917, this Russian word (its singular form is anekdot, and the plural one is anekdoty) had the same meaning as its equivalent anecdote has in English. According to the American Heritage dictionary, anecdote is either a) 'a short account of some interesting or humorous incident, or b) secret or hitherto undivulged particulars of history or biography.'

However, after 1917, the word anekdoty has acquired in the USSR a new meaning. Rather than denoting accounts of a real event, it now referred to invented jokes which propagated via word of mouth. A special place among these jokes belonged to numerous satirical pieces with political connotation, usually deriding the official communist propaganda.

Presumably, the survivors of the regime feel differently about this... your parents lived under the Soviets, no? How did they feel about jokes as a coping mechanism?

 

[nonconformist]

I love Soviet jokes, they're so negative, yet funny.

My favourite is the one about the man who stood outside the Kremlin, shouting "Brezhnev is an idiot", and was given twenty years in the Gulag.
Six months for dissidence, and 19 years six months for releasing a state secret.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

Still you can't even imagine how many anecdotes about eastblockers and west exist.

 

[Solver]

Yeah, Soviet/Russian jokes are a separate brand of humour. Funny.

BTW, you shouldn't really write "anekdoty" as "anecdotes". In Russian, there's a bunch of words that matches English words, however, with a different meaning. The English "anecdote" is a "short account of an incident", used as in "anecdotal evidence", etc. The Russian "anekdot" refers to oral jokes and only to them. So it's not really the same word...

 

[Masquerouge]

I remember one of these Anekdotys.

Under Brejnev,there is this very succesful apparatchik, high member of the Communist Party, who decides to brag about how great his life is to his mother. He brings her to his nice, private flat in the best area of Moscow, spoil her with caviar and Champagne, and drives her around the city in a very luxurious Zim, the luxury cars reserved to the governement elite. Then they board an army plane that brings them to his datcha (secondary residence) by the black sea, where once again he treats her to amazing food, while displaying his collection of Russian art.
Finally he turns to his mother and says:
- so Mom, what do you think? Did I succeed or did I not?
- That's all very well, my son... but what if the Reds come back?

 

[plarq]

Those jokes are still in effect in my life...

 

[silver 2039]

How many Russian officers does it take to chage a light bulb?

2.

One to change the light bulb, and the other to shoot him and take the credit for it.

 

[Gladi]

It is the party congress. The party members are lined up at the buffet. Suddenly one turns to his neighbour "Comrade, what happened? You don't have your medals on!". The other one is stricken "Oh, you are right! I forgot them on my pajamas !"