In\nthe 19th<\/sup> century, \u201canekdot,\u201d meant a story or joke about someone\nelse, a historical character, or the narrator (but not <\/em>the teller of\nsaid joke). However, as the 20th<\/sup> century started, the main butt of\nthese jokes changed. The anekdoty stopped being a distant story and became a\nshort, humorous tale with an unexpected ending. Most importantly, the anekdoty became\nmore personal and impactful. Arkhipova cited Nikita Okunev\u2019s diary in 1922,\nwhere he wrote: \u201c[The old anecdotes] put us in a cheerful mood\u2026now hearing\nthese new jokes makes me feel afraid, because it is about real life.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The new anecdotes featured a character\nwho always commented on unpleasant, contemporary reality. Who better to comment\non suffering than the Russian Jew? As one of the punchlines goes in a famous,\nearly 20th<\/sup> century joke, the Jew would punish Emperor Wilhelm for\nhis crimes in the First World War by branding him a Jew and sending him to\nRussia. The Jew, as Arkhipova argued, thus became a symbolic character that\nrepresented a minority group suffering in the early 20th<\/sup> century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another important symbolic figure within the anekdot involved the trickster: in Jewish folklore from the 17th<\/sup> to 19th<\/sup> centuries, they often appeared as main characters. After the 1917 revolution, Jews moved throughout the country. The Provisional Government abolished the Pale of Settlement in 1917, allowing Jews to become more mobile. When Jewish families moved outside the former Pale, they also brought their Yiddish jokes and folklore with them. This oral tradition, including stories of tricksters, was also written down and distributed, making it available to more and more people. In these original jokes, the trickster pushes the limits of authority, but somehow always gets away with it. Eventually, as these stories evolved, the trickster did not have to be Jewish, but the basic plot and point remained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the anekdoty about tricksters\nevolved and as Russian Jews moved within the USSR, anti-Semitic jokes followed\nthem. In them, the main character becomes a greedy or self-righteous Jew, who\nbelieves Russians should be in a ghetto, while the Jews rule the country as the\ndominant ethnic group. In addition, numerous jokes appeared where Jews \u201chide in\nplain sight,\u201d changing their names and appearances in order to sneak back into\nsociety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arkhipova\nfollowed the arc of these stories by tracing how new jokes responded to the\nanti-Semitic anecdotes. A very common category that did so reintroduced the\ncunning trickster who stumps authorities. As one famous joke shared by Arkhipova\ngoes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rabinovich\nwas walking down the street and swore: <\/p>\n\n\n\n –\nScoundrels, idiots! Look what they have brought upon this country!<\/p>\n\n\n\n -Secret Policemen in\ncivilian clothing come up to him and demanded clarification about who has\nbrought the ruin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –\n\u201cWhat do you mean \u2018who\u2019?\u201d The American\nImperialists, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –\nThe agents, clearly frustrated, let him go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n – Rabinovich catches up with\nthem and asks: Excuse me, but who were you <\/em>thinking of? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The life cycle of Jewish humor continued after communism\u2019s collapse. Under Putin, freedom of speech is under threat in Russia. In recent years, there has been a return to prosecuting people for social media posts and even for telling jokes.[1]<\/a> An examination of the origin Russian humor is critical when dealing with the revival of discrimination. Professor Arkhipova ended her lecture with a joke from 2016, which connects the prosecution of jokes in the distant past to the not-so-different present. In this joke, we see the connection between the past and the present in the ongoing authoritarian attempts to control speech in Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u0414\u043b\u044f \u043d\u0430\u0441 \u0441\u043e\u0437\u0434\u0430\u043b \u0420\u043e\u0441\u043a\u043e\u043c\u043d\u0430\u0434\u0437\u043e\u0440<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u041c\u0435\u0436 \u043f\u043e\u043a\u043e\u043b\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0439 \u043c\u043e\u0441\u0442.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u0421\u0438\u0434\u0435\u043b \u043c\u043e\u0439 \u0434\u0435\u0434 \u0437\u0430 \u0430\u043d\u0435\u043a\u0434\u043e\u0442.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u042f \u0441\u044f\u0434\u0443 \u0437\u0430 \u0440\u0435\u043f\u043e\u0441\u0442. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In one mighty\nstroke, Roskomnadzor<\/p>\n\n\n\n Has bridged the\ngenerational gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My grandpa was\njailed for telling a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I for\nreposting it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arkhipova\u2019s lecture highlighted the continued significance that \u201cthe weapons of the weak,\u201d in this instance the use of humor, has in Russia.[2]<\/a> Authoritarians are often afraid of humor because they know their grasp on power is weak and sustained by fear. Jokes, humor, and other small forms of resistance all add to the communal dissolution of a psyche of fear, violence, and strife. Jokes do more than just let off steam. They can be part of a movement, and Arkhipova showed that this movement is nothing new and that it is not disappearing anytime soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Adams is a senior majoring in History and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. He is an undergraduate fellow at the Havighurst Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> Astghik Grigoryan,\n\u201cGovernment Responses to Disinformation on Social Media Platforms: Russia,\u201d Library\nof Congress<\/em>, September 2019, https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/law\/help\/social-media-disinformation\/russia.php<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> James C. Scott, Weapons\nof the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance<\/em>, New Haven: Yale UP,\n1985.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Alex Adams Joining us from an expedition in the Caucasus, Dr. Aleksandra Arkhipova, Senior Research Fellow at the Russian State University for the Humanities and the Russian School of Economics, presented her new research to the Havighurst Center for … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/files\/2021\/04\/arkhipova-gershko.jpg\")
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