Russian jokes

Russian jokes (Russian: анекдо́ты, transcribed anekdoty, literally "anecdotes"), the most popular form of Russian humor, are short fictional stories or dialogs with a punch line.

Russian joke culture includes a series of categories with fixed and highly familiar settings and characters. Surprising effects are achieved by an endless variety of plot twists. Russian jokes treat topics found everywhere in the world, including sex, politics, spousal relations, or mothers-in-law. This article discusses Russian joke subjects that are particular to Russian or Soviet culture. A major subcategory is Russian political jokes, which are discussed in a separate article.

Every category has numerous untranslatable jokes that rely on linguistic puns, wordplay, and the Russian language vocabulary of foul language. Below, (L) marks jokes whose humor value critically depends on intrinsic features of the Russian language.

Archetypes

Named characters

Stierlitz

Vyacheslav Tikhonov portraying Stierlitz

Stierlitz is a fictional Soviet intelligence officer, portrayed by Vyacheslav Tikhonov in the popular Soviet TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring. In the jokes, Stierlitz interacts with various characters, most prominently his nemesis Müller. Usually two-liners spoofing the solemn style of the original TV voice-overs, the plot is resolved in grotesque plays on words or in parodies of the trains of thought and narrow escapes of the "original" Stierlitz.

Poruchik Rzhevsky

Poruchik (First Lieutenant) Dmitry Rzhevsky is a cavalry (Hussar) officer, a straightforward, unsophisticated, and immensely rude military type whose rank and standing nevertheless gain him entrance into high society. In the aristocratic setting of high-society formal balls, and 19th-century social sophistication with widespread use of the French language, Rzhevsky, famous for brisk but usually unintelligent remarks, keeps puncturing the decorum with his vulgarities. In the jokes, he is often seen interacting with characters from the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. The name is borrowed from a character from a popular 1960s comedy, Hussar Ballad (Russian: «Гусарская баллада»), bearing little in common with the folklore hero. The 1967 film rendering of War and Peace contributed to the proliferation of the Rzhevsky jokes.[2] Some researchers point out that many jokes of this kind are versions of 19th-century Russian army jokes, retold as a new series of jokes about Rzhevsky.[3]

Rzhevsky (and supposedly all Hussars) has a casual, nonchalant attitude to love and sex:

He also gives his best advice to other Russian gentlemen on love matters. The Poruchik believes that the most straightforward approach is the most effective one:[3]

A series of jokes in which Rzhevsky wants to impress a high society gathering with a witticism, but messes up:

A series of jokes is based on a paradox of vulgarity within a high society setting:

While successful narration of quite a few Russian jokes heavily depends on using sexual vulgarities ("Russian mat"), Rzhevsky, with all his vulgarity, does not use heavy mat in traditional versions of his tales. One of his favorite words is "arse" (which is considered rather mild among Russian vulgarities), and there is a series of jokes where Rzhevsky answers "arse" to some innocent question (it is typical of Rzhevsky to blurt unromantic comments in the most romantic situations[3]):

The essence of Rzhevsky's peculiarity is captured in the following meta-joke:

This theme culminates in the following joke, sometimes called "the ultimate Hussar joke":

Rabinovich

Sholem Aleichem, a famous Rabinovich

Rabinovich, is an archetypal Russian Jew. He is a crafty, cynical, sometimes bitter type, skeptical about the Soviet government, and often too smart for his own good. He is sometimes portrayed as an otkaznik ("refusenik"): someone who is refused permission to emigrate to Israel.

This following example explains Vladimir Putin's remark about "Comrade Wolf", describing the policies of the United States, that many non-Russians found cryptic (Russia's neighbors tend to think this an example of psychological projection by Putin, reflecting instead his own behavior):[5]

Vovochka

Vovochka is the Russian equivalent of "Little Johnny". He interacts with his school teacher, Maria Ivanovna (shortened to "Marivanna", a stereotypical female teacher's name). "Vovochka" is a diminutive form of "Vladimir", creating the "little boy" effect. His fellow students bear similarly diminutive names. This "little boy" name is used in contrast with Vovochka's wisecracking, adult, often obscene statements.

Vasily Ivanovich

Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev (Russian: Василий Иванович Чапаев), a Red Army hero of the Russian Civil War, in the rank of Division Commander, was featured in a hugely popular 1934 biopic. The most common topics are the war with the monarchist White Army, Chapayev's futile attempts to enroll into the Frunze Military Academy, and the circumstances of Chapayev's death (officially, he was gunned down by the Whites while attempting to flee across the Ural River after a lost battle).

Chapayev is usually accompanied by his aide-de-camp Petka (Петька, "Peter"), as well as Anka the Machine-Gunner (Анка-Пулемётчица), and political commissar Furmanov, all based on real people. (Being well known in Russian popular culture, Chapayev, Petka, and Anka were featured in a series of Russian adventure games released in the late 1990s and 2000s.)[6]

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson

Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes

A number of jokes involve characters from the famous novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about the private detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. The jokes appeared and became popular soon after The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson film series was broadcast on Soviet TV in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. In all these movies, the characters were brilliantly played by the same actors – Vasily Livanov (as Sherlock Holmes) and Vitaly Solomin (as Watson). Quotes from these films are usually included in the jokes («Элементарно, Ватсон!» – "Elementary, my dear Watson!"). The narrator of such a joke usually tries to mimic the unique husky voice of Vasily Livanov. The standard plot of these jokes is a short dialog where Watson naïvely wonders about something, and Holmes finds a "logical" explanation to the phenomenon in question. Occasionally the jokes also include other characters – Mrs Hudson, the landlady of Holmes's residence on Baker Street; or Sir Henry and his butler Barrymore from The Hound of the Baskervilles; or the detective's nemesis Professor Moriarty.

The preceding joke won second place in the World's funniest joke contest.

Fantômas

Jean Marais as Fantômas in the 1964 film.

Some older jokes involve Fantômas, a fictional criminal and master of disguise from the French detective series Fantômas, which were once widely popular in the USSR. His archenemy is Inspector Juve, charged with catching him. Fantômas' talent for disguise is usually the focus of the joke, allowing for jokes featuring all sorts of other characters:

New Russians

Mercedes-Benz S600 (W140)
Zaporozhets 968

New Russians (Russian: новые русские, Novye Russkie, the nouveau-riche), a class of arrogant, stupid, poorly-educated post-perestroika businessmen and gangsters, were a very common category of characters in Russian jokes of the 1990s. A common theme is the interaction of a New Russian in his archetypal shiny black Mercedes S600, arguing with a regular Russian in his modest Soviet-era Zaporozhets after their vehicles collide. The New Russian is often a violent criminal or at least speaks criminal argot, with a number of neologisms (or common words with skewed meaning) typical among New Russians. In a way, these anecdotes are a continuation of the Soviet-era series about Georgians, who were then depicted as extremely wealthy. The physical stereotype of the New Russians is often that of overweight men with short haircuts, dressed in thick gold chains and crimson jackets, with their fingers in the horns gesture, cruising around in the "600 Merc" and showing off their wealth. Jokes about expensive foreign sports cars can be compared to German Manta jokes.

Animals

Jokes set in the animal kingdom also feature characters, which draw their roots in the old Slavic fairy tales, where animals are portrayed as sapient beings with a stereotypical behavior, such as the violent Wolf; the sneaky (female) Fox; the cocky, cowardly Hare; the strong, simple-minded Bear; the multi-dimensional Hedgehog; and the Lion, king of the animal kingdom. In the Russian language all objects, animate and inanimate, have a (grammatical) gender - masculine, feminine, or neuter. The reader should assume that the Wolf, the Bear, the Hare, the Lion, and the Hedgehog are males, whereas the Fox (Vixen) is a female:

Animals in Russian jokes are and were very well aware of politics in the realm of humans:

Animal jokes are often fables, i.e. their punchline is (or eventually becomes) a kind of a maxim.

The Golden Fish

Aside from mammals, a rather common non-human is the "Golden Fish", who asks the catcher to release her in exchange for three wishes. The first Russian instance of this appeared in Alexander Pushkin's The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish. In jokes, the Fisherman may be replaced by a representative of a nationality or ethnicity, and the third wish usually makes the punch line of the joke.

A similar type of joke involves a wish-granting Genie, the main difference being that in the case of the Golden Fish the Fisherman suffers from his own stupidity or greed, while the Genie is known for ingeniously twisting an interpretation of the wish to frustrate the grantee.

Drunkards

Policemen

These often revolve around the supposition that the vast majority of Russian and Soviet militsioners (policemen, now called politzia) accept bribes. Also, they are not considered to be very bright.

Ethnic stereotypes

Imperial Russia had been multi-ethnic for many centuries, and this situation continued throughout the Soviet period, and continues still. Throughout history, several ethnic stereotypes have developed, often in common with those views by other ethnicities (usually except for the ethnicity in question, but not always).

Chukchi

Chukchi, the native people of Chukotka, the most remote northeast corner of Russia, are a common minority targeted for generic ethnic jokes in Russia.[11] In jokes, they are depicted as generally primitive, uncivilized, and simple-minded, but clever in a naive kind of way.[12] A propensity for constantly saying odnako (equivalent to "however", depending on context) is a staple of Chukcha jokes. Often a straight man of the Chukcha in the jokes is a Russian geologist.

Chukchi do not miss their chance to retort:

Chukchi, due to their innocence, often see the inner truth of situations:

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are depicted as rustic, stingy, and inordinately fond of salted salo (pork back fat); their accent, which is imitated in jokes, is perceived as funny.

Ukrainians are perceived to bear a grudge against Russians (derided as Moskali by Ukrainians):

Georgians

Armenian Suren Spandaryan (left) and Georgian Joseph Stalin in 1915

Georgians are almost always depicted as stupid, greedy, hot-blooded, or sexually addicted, and in some cases, all four at the same time. A very loud and theatrical Georgian accent, including grammatical errors considered typical of Georgians, and occasional Georgian words are considered funny to imitate in Russian and often becomes a joke in itself.

In some jokes, Georgians are portrayed as rich, because in Soviet times they were also perceived as profiting immensely from black market businesses. There is a humorous expression deriving from the custom in police reports of referring to them as "persons of Caucasian nationality" (Russian: лицо кавказской национальности). Since the Russian word for "person" in the formal sense, (Russian: лицо), is the same as the word for "face", this allows a play on words about "faces of Caucasian nationality". In Russia itself, most people see "persons of Caucasian nationality" mostly at marketplaces selling fruits and flowers. In recent years, many old jokes about rich Georgians are being recast in terms of "New Russians".

Armenians

Armenians are often used interchangeably with Georgians, sharing some of the stereotypes. However their unique context is the fictitious Radio Yerevan, usually telling political jokes. Many other jokes are based on word play, often combined with the usage of a strong southern accent and consequent misunderstandings among the characters.

Estonians and Finns

Estonians and Finns are depicted as having no sense of humor and being stubborn, taciturn, and especially slow. The Estonian accent, especially its sing-song tune and the lack of genders in grammar, forms part of the humor. Their common usage of long vowels and consonants both in speech and orthography (e.g. words such as Tallinn, Saaremaa) also led to the stereotype of being slow in speech, thinking, and action. In the everyday life, a person may be derisively called a "hot Estonian fellow" (or in similar spirit, a "hot-tempered Finnish bloke", a phrase popularized by the 1995 Russian comedy Peculiarities of the National Hunt) to emphasize tardiness or lack of temperament. Indeed, Estonians play a similar role in Soviet humor to that of Finns in Scandinavian jokes.

Finnish political scientist Ilmari Susiluoto, also an author of three books on Russian humor, writes that Finns and Russians understand each other's humor. "Being included in a Russian anecdote is a privilege that Danes or Dutchmen have not attained. These nations are too boring and unvaried to rise into the consciousness of a large country. But the funny and slightly silly, stubborn Finns, the Chukhnas do."[13]

Finns share with Chukchi their ability to withstand cold:

Jews

Jewish humor is a highly developed subset of Russian humor, largely based on the Russian Jews' self-image. These Jewish anecdotes are not the same as anti-Semitic jokes. As some Jews say themselves, Jewish jokes are being made by either anti-Semites or the Jews themselves. Instead, whether told by Jews or non-Jewish Russians, these jokes show cynicism, self-irony, and wit that is characteristic of Jewish humor both in Russia and elsewhere in the world (see Jewish humor). The jokes are usually told with a characteristic Jewish accent (stretching out syllables, parodying the uvular trill of "R", etc.) and some peculiarities of sentence structure calqued into Russian from Yiddish. Many of these jokes are set in Odessa, and to some extent the phrase "Odessa humor" is synonymous with "Jewish jokes," even if the characters don't have Jewish names and even their religion/ethnicity is never mentioned. To Russians, it is sufficient to begin a joke with: "So, an Odessan woman gets on the bus...", and her Jewishness is implicitly understood by the listener.

During the 1967 Arab–Israeli War Russian sympathies were on the side of the Jews despite Egypt under Nasser was officially a Soviet ally, "on the Socialist path of development":

Chinese

Common jokes center on the enormous size of the Chinese population, the Chinese language and the perceptions of the Chinese as cunning, industrious, and hard-working. Other popular jokes revolve around the belief that the Chinese are capable of amazing feats by primitive means, such as the Great Leap Forward.

A good many of the jokes are puns based on the fact that a widespread Chinese syllable (written as "hui" in pinyin) looks very similar to the obscene Russian word for penis. For this reason, since about 1956 the Russian-Chinese dictionaries render the Russian transcription of this syllable as "хуэй" (huey) (which actually is closer to the correct Chinese pronunciation). The most embarrassing case for the Chinese-Soviet friendship probably is the word "socialism" (社会主义; pinyin: shè huì zhǔ yì), rendered previously as шэ-хуй-чжу-и. The following humorous possibilities for the misunderstanding of the Chinese syllable "Hui" are derived from Aarons's (2012) text:[14]

Russians

Russians are a stereotype in Russian jokes themselves when set next to other stereotyped ethnicities. Thus, the Russian appearing in a triple joke with two Westerners, German, French, American or Englishman, will provide for a self-ironic punchline depicting himself as simple-minded and negligently careless but physically robust, which often ensures that he retains the upper hand over his less naive Western counterparts. Another common plot is a Russian holding a contest with technologically-superior opponents (usually, an American and a Japanese) and winning with sheer brute force or a clever trick.

Linguistic quirks

Like elsewhere in the world, a good many of jokes in Russia are based on puns. Other jokes depend on grammatical and linguistic oddities and irregularities in the Russian language:

A similar story by Mikhail Zoshchenko involves yet another answer: after great care and multiple drafts to get the genitive case correct, including the substitution of "five штук (pieces)" for "five pokers", the response comes back: the warehouse has no kocherezhek (fully regular G pl of kocherezhka, "little poker").[15]

Eggs

The Russian word for "testicle" is a diminutive of "egg", so the slang word is the non-diminutive form (yaitso). A large variety of jokes capitalizes on this, ranging from predictably silly to surprisingly elegant:

Religion

Some religious jokes make fun of the clergy. They tend to be told in quasi-Church Slavonic, with its archaisms and the stereotypical okanye (a clear pronunciation of the unstressed /o/ as /o/; Modern Russian or "Muscovite" speech reduces unstressed /o/ to /a/). Clergymen in these jokes always bear obsolete names of distinctively Greek origin, and speak in basso profundo.

Other jokes touching on religion involve Heaven or Hell.

Afterlife

Russian military

Probably any nation large enough to have an army has a good many of its own barracks jokes. Other than plays on words, these jokes are usually internationally understandable. In the Soviet Union, military service was universal (for males), so most people could relate to them. In these jokes a praporschik (warrant officer) is an archetypal bully, possessed of limited wit.

A. Dmitriev illustrates his sociological essay "Army Humor" with a large number of military jokes, mostly of Russian origin.[17]

There is an enormous number of one-liners, supposedly quoting a praporschik:

The punchline "from the fence to lunchtime" has become a well-known Russian cliché for an assignment with no defined ending (or for doing something forever).

Some of them are philosophical and apply not just to warrant officers:

A persistent theme in Russian military/police/law-enforcement-related jokes is the ongoing conflict between the representatives of the armed forces/law enforcement, and the "intelligentsia", i.e. well-educated members of society. Therefore, this theme is a satire of the image of military/law-enforcement officers and superiors as dumb and distrustful of "those educated smart-alecks":

Until shortly before perestroika, all fit male students of higher education had obligatory military ROTC courses from which they graduate as junior officers in the military reserve. A good many of military jokes originated there:

Sometimes, these silly statements can cross over, intentionally or unintentionally, into the realm of actual wit:

There are jokes about Russian nuclear missile forces and worldwide disasters because of lack of basic army discipline:

There is also eternal mutual disdain between servicemen and civilians:

Black humor

Chernobyl

Medical

Medical jokes are widespread. Often, they consist of a short dialogue of doctor or nurse with a patient:

The phrase "The doc said 'to the morgue' — to the morgue it is!" (Доктор сказал «в морг» — значит в морг!) became a well-known Russian cliché, meaning that something unpleasant must be done.

University students

The life of most Russian university students is characterized by many people coming from small towns and crowded into grim dormitories. State universities (the only type of universities in existence during Soviet times) are notable for not caring about the students' comfort or the quality of their food. Most jokes make fun of these "interesting" conditions, inventive evasion by students of their academic duties or lecture attendance, constant shortage of money, and sometimes the alcoholic tendencies of engineering students.

Nutrition

Drinking

Study

Also, there are a number of funny student obsessions such as zachyotka (a book of grade transcripts, carried by every student), halyava (a chance of getting something (in this context, good or acceptable grades) without any effort), and getting a stipend for good grades.

A large number of jokes are about an exam: these are usually a dialogue between the professor and the student, based on a set of questions written on a bilet (a small sheet of paper, literally "ticket"), which the student draws at random in the exam room, and is given some time to prepare answers.

Other jokes use the fact that many (or even most) students really study only when the exam is in the imminent future (in one or two days), otherwise spending time with more interesting activities such as parties.

Cowboys

Cowboy jokes are a popular series about a Wild West full of trigger-happy simple-minded cowboys, and the perception that everything is big in Texas. It is often difficult to guess whether these are imported or genuinely Russian inventions:

Variant: "The guy over there saved my life yesterday, I am really grateful to him." / [???] / "The one that has fallen!"
The "Uncatchable Joe" (Russian: Неуловимый Джо) has become an ironic nickname in Russia for various difficult-to-find persons (not necessarily unimportant ones). It is suggested that the nickname and the joke originated from a 1923 satirical novel An Uncatchable Enemy: American Novel by Mikhail Kozyrev (ru:Козырев, Михаил Яковлевич) which contained a funny song about a Joe who was uncatchable because no one needed him.[18]

A joke making fun of American films and their pirated English-to-Russian dubbing:

Disabilities

There is a series of jokes set in mental hospitals, some of which have a political subtext:

A large number of jokes are about distrofiks, people with severe muscular dystrophy. The main themes are the extreme weakness, slowness, gauntness, and emaciation of a dystrophic patient. Some of the jibes originated in jokes about Gulag camps. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his Gulag Archipelago, wrote that dystrophy was a typical phase in the life of a Gulag inmate, and quotes the following joke:

Taboo vocabulary

The very use of obscene Russian vocabulary, called mat, can enhance the humorous effect of a joke by its emotional impact. Due to the somewhat different cultural attitude to obscene slang, such an effect is difficult to render in English. The taboo status often makes mat itself the subject of a joke. One typical plot goes as follows.

A construction site expects an inspection from the higher-ups, so a foreman warns the boys to watch their tongues. During the inspection, a hammer is accidentally dropped from the fourth floor right on a worker's head... The punch line is an exceedingly polite, classy rebuke from the mouth of the injured, rather than a typically expected "#@&%$!". For example the injured worker might say: "Dear co-workers, could you please watch your tools a little more carefully, so as to prevent such cases and avoid work-place injuries?" In another variant of the joke the punch line is "Vasya, please desist in pouring molten tin over my head".

(L) Another series of jokes exploits the richness of the mat vocabulary, which can give a substitute to a great many words of everyday conversation. Other languages often use profanity in a similar way (like the English fuck, for example), but the highly synthetic grammar of Russian provides for the unambiguity and the outstandingly great number of various derivations from a single mat root. Emil Draitser points out that linguists explain that the linguistic properties of the Russian language rich in affixes allows for expression of a wide variety of feelings and notions using only a few core mat words:[20]

As an ultimate joke in this series, the goal is to apply such substitution to as many words of a sentence as possible while keeping it meaningful. The following dialog at a construction site between a foreman and a worker retains a clear meaning even with all of its 14 words being derived from the single obscene word khuy. Russian language proficiency is needed to understand this fully: Word-by-word:

— Okhuyeli?! (Have [you] gone mad?!) Nakhuya (why) dokhuya (so much) khuyni (of stuff) nakhuyarili (you have loaded up)? Raskhuyarivay (unload [it]) nakhuy! (out of here)
— Khuli?! (What's the problem?) Nikhuya! (No way!) Nekhuy (No need) raskhuyarivat (to unload)! Nakhuyacheno ([It] got loaded) nekhuyovo! (quite well)! Pokhuyarili! (Let's go)

Possible, but incomplete translation:

— Fuckheads, why the fuck did you fucking load so fucking much of this shit? Unfuck it the fuck out of here!
— What's the fucking problem?! Fuck no! No fucking need to unfuck! It got fucked up fucking well! Let's fucking go!

After this example one may readily believe the following semi-apocryphal story. An inspection was expected at a Soviet plant to award it the Quality Mark, so the administration prohibited the usage of mat. On the next day the productivity dropped abruptly. People's Control figured out the reason: miscommunication. It turned out that workers knew all the tools and parts only by their mat-based names: khuyovina, pizdyulina, khuynyushka, khuyatina, etc. (all of these are loosely translated as "thing"); the same went for technological processes: otkhuyachit (to detach, cut, disconnect), zayebenit (to push through, force into), prikhuyachit (to attach, connect, bond, nail), khuynut (to move slightly, throw, pour), zakhuyarit (to throw far away, to put in deeply) etc.

Another story, possibly apocryphal, relates that during the time of the Space Race the CIA placed a bug in a Soviet rocket factory to gain intelligence about the manufacturing process. After six months of careful listening, the Americans had learned that Soviet rockets seemed to consist of khuyevina, pizd'ulina, and a poyeben' connecting them together, with all three parts being completely interchangeable.

References

  1. ↑ Beumers, Birgit (2005). Pop culture Russia!: media, arts, and lifestyle. ABC-CLIO. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-85109-459-2.
  2. 1 2 Graham, Seth (2004) A Cultural Analysis of the Russo-Soviet Anekdot. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Emil Draitser, Making War, Not Love: Gender and Sexuality in Russian Humor (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-312-22129-0, p.120 — a review in Journal of Folklore Research
  4. ↑ D. Kalinina (2007) Gusary Deneg Ne Berut ISBN 5-699-19696-X
  5. ↑ "Putin takes swipe at hungry America's 'Comrade Wolf'", Times Online, May 10, 2006
  6. ↑ MobyGames — Petka series
  7. ↑ "Dictionary of Russian slang & colloquial expressions", by Vladimir Shlyakhov, Eve Adler, 2nd edition, 1999, ISBN 0-7641-1019-5
  8. ↑ a page from the Chudak magazine (retrieved March 7, 2014)
  9. ↑ "История в анекдотах" ("A History in Jokes"), by Mikhail Melnichenko, February 15, 2008 (retrieved March 7, 2014)
  10. ↑ "Напуганный человек", from book by Leo Yakovlev (Лео Яковлев), "Суфии: Восхождение к истине" ("Sufists: An Ascent to Truth")
  11. ↑ Juha Janhunen, "Gendai Sobieto shakai no minshuu-denshoo to shite no Chukuchi-jooku."("Chukchee jokes as a form of modern Soviet folklore", transl. by Hiroshi Shoji). – Kotoba-asobi no minzokushi. Ed. by EGuchi Kazuhisa. Tokyo 1990, 377–385
  12. 1 2 3 Бурыкин А.А., Анекдоты о чукчах как социокультурное явление in: Анекдот как феномен культуры. Материалы круглого стола 16 ноября 2002 г. СПб.: Санкт-Петербургское философское общество, 2002. С.64-70(retrieved March 10, 2015)
  13. 1 2 Soviet nostalgia lives on in Russian anecdotes, Helsingin Sanomat, 9/5/2006
  14. ↑ Aarons, Debra. (2012). Jokes and the Linguistic Mind. Taylor & Francis.
  15. ↑ Zoschenko, Mikhail. КОЧЕРГА [Fireplace poker] (in Russian). Retrieved 22 May 2014.
  16. ↑ 20 высказываний Путина, ставших афоризмами RIA Novosti
  17. ↑ Дмитриев А. В. Социология юмора: Очерки. М., 1996, article "Army Humor" (Russian)
  18. ↑ A Large Dictionary of Russian Nicknames, by Harry Walter and Valery Mokiyenko (2007) ISBN 5-373-00435-9, p. 193
  19. ↑ Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago
  20. ↑ Emil Draitzer, Making War Not Love, p. 37

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