Bunin’s Loopy Ears.

Another break from Sokolov, another great Bunin story (see this post): his 1916 “Петлистые уши” [Loopy Ears] (published in 1917, in Slovo 7) is far more interesting than it is made to sound in the usual summary (“man murders prostitute”). Yes, in the last sentence we learn that a prostitute has been murdered, but that’s just the donnée on which the story is based (apparently it was sparked by Bunin’s having read a newspaper account of such a killing). Bunin was polemicizing with his least favorite writer, Dostoevsky (one of the things he and Nabokov had in common), replacing the loquacious and tormented Raskolnikov with the sullen Adam Sokolovich, a former sailor who spends his time wandering around Petrograd, looking into shop windows, and hanging out in dives. At the start of the story we see him in such a dive, in the down-at-heels neighborhood near Five Corners (Пять углов, associated with Dostoevsky), haranguing a couple of sailors about the depravity of mankind (I quote the translation in Thomas Gaiton Marullo, “Crime without Punishment: Ivan Bunin’s ‘Loopy Ears’,” Slavic Review 40.4 [Winter 1981]: 614-624 [JSTOR]):

It is time to abandon the fairy tale concerning pangs of conscience, those moments which supposedly haunt the murderer. People have lied enough as it is — as if they shudder from the sight of blood. Enough of writing novels about crimes with their punishments; it is time to write about crimes without any punishments at all. The outlook of the criminal depends on his view of the murder — whether he can expect from his crime the gallows, reward, or praise. In truth, are they tormented, are they horrified, those who accept ancestral revenge, duels, war, revolution, and executions?

He goes on to mention the famous (in his day) French executioner Louis Deibler (who chopped off “exactly five hundred heads”), the violence in popular literature (including James Fenimore Cooper and the Bible), and the horrors of World War I (Bunin was writing two years into the war): the mass murder of Armenians by the Turks, the poisoning of wells by the Germans, and the bombing of Nazareth (I can find no reference to this — maybe a war rumor in 1916?). He concludes that it was only Raskolnikov who was ever tormented by murder, and only because his spiteful creator insisted on sticking Christ into all his trashy novels (“по воле своего злобного автора, совавшего Христа во все свои бульварные романы”). By the time he leaves his indifferent companions and heads out into nighttime Petrograd, oppressed by a wintry fog, half the story has gone by, and since Bunin does not waste sentences, we obviously need to give due weight to that conversation.

At this point we get a wonderful travelogue (Mark Aldanov quotes it at the start of his 1933 “Об искусстве Бунина” [On the art of Bunin] and says “I don’t know any description in Russian literature equal to it,” concluding his detailed analysis of the story by calling it the best of Bunin’s short works): Sokolovich walks down Nevsky Prospect, seeing a fallen horse by the famous Palkin restaurant (at #47 since 1874), crossing the Anichkov Bridge over the Fontanka, seeing the reddish gleam of the clock on the City Duma, reaching the Kazan Cathedral and entering the Dominique Cafe (that translation of the article in the Encyclopaedia of St. Petersburg for some reason uses the spelling “Dominic,” though they correctly give the name of the Swiss founder as Dominique Ritz Aport; the 1914 Baedecker calls it Dominique), where he sits in a dark corner, orders a black coffee, and fends off an undercover cop. These pages are clearly meant to compete with similar descriptions of the city in Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Bely, and they do so brilliantly. At 1 AM the restaurant closes and he goes back out onto the frigid street:

At night in the fog Nevsky is terrifying. It is deserted, dead, the haze that befogs it seems a part of that Arctic haze that comes from the end of the world, that place where something incomprehensible to human reason is hidden and that is called the pole.

Ночью в туман Невский страшен. Он безлюден, мертв, мгла, туманящая его, кажется частью той самой арктической мглы, что идет оттуда, где конец мира, где скрывается нечто непостижимое человеческим разумом и называется Полюсом.

(I thought “в туман” must be a typo for “в тумане,” but all editions seem to have it.) That’s one of the many passages I marked in the margin as worthy of repeating aloud and enjoying repeatedly, and I quote it here as a sample — the story is full of such writing, and for anyone who loves good prose it’s worth learning Russian just to read Bunin.

At this point he sees the prostitute, Korolkova, calls a cab, takes her to a cheap hotel in the outskirts (“в таинственную глушь ночных столичных окраин”), snaps at the sleepy номерной (valet/concierge/boots), orders champagne and grapes, and leaves early in the morning (upon which the valet enters the room and sees the body). It’s a grim description of dehumanized humans and efficiently produces the effect Bunin wanted, but it’s not what the story is “about.” It is not, as Victor Terras once called it, “a chilling study of sadism” — or rather, that’s merely one of the many things it is, and one of the least interesting. The story is about the story, all of it; like a poem, it’s a machine made of words.

I should mention the title, which gives almost as much trouble as Bad Grass. The first word, петлистый, is a perfectly normal (though uncommon) adjective derived from петля ‘loop; noose’; Nabokov — who was uncommonly fond of it, using it in his story Возвращение Чорба [“The Return of Chorb”: петлистые тени листьев], in the novels Камера обскура [Laughter in the Dark: петлистое шоссе] and Дар [The Gift: с петлистыми «рцы» и «покоями»], in the memoir Другие берега [eventually transmogrified into Speak, Memory: в петлистых тенях дышащей в такт аллеи], and several times in his translation of Lolita [любимые, петлистые, детские каракули; воспользоваться петлистым, ленивым шоссе Зед; пошел сквозь петлистый огонь солнца] — rendered it in English as “loopy,” and that’s probably the best translation here (though it can also be Englished as “twisting,” “winding,” “meandering,” and the like). The problem is that the title comes from Sokolovich’s tavern conversation, where he calls himself a degenerate (выродок) and says that you can recognize degenerates, geniuses, vagrants, and murderers by their loopy ears, which resemble the loop/noose with which they’re hanged: “У выродков, у гениев, у бродяг и убийц уши петлистые, то есть похожие на петлю, вот на ту самую, которой и давят их.” And since the Russian plays on the resemblance to the word for the hangman’s noose, Robert Bowie, who translated it for the collection Night of Denial: Stories and Novellas, felt impelled to render the title “Noosiform Ears.” Come on, dude. For that matter, he’s not good on names in general: he calls Deibler “Deblair” and Dominique “Dominick.” But it doesn’t look like a bad translation, and since there are so few English versions of Bunin out there, I recommend it.

Oh, and one last thing. Marullo quotes a Soviet critic as follows:

L. Nikulin writes that Bunin was one of the few Russian writers of the age who did not subscribe to militaristic tones in his writings. Nor did he see the war as providing the potential for the spiritual rebirth of mankind (see L. Nikulin, “Ivan Bunin,” in Ivan Bunin, Sobranie sochinenii, 5 vols. [Moscow, 1956]…).

Good for Bunin! War (as we used to say) is not healthy for children and other living things.

Comments

  1. David L. Gold says

    “The bombing of Nazareth” probably refers to the Battle of Nazareth (20-21 September 1916), in which the belligerents were the British Empire and the Ottoman and German empires (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nazareth).

  2. January First-of-May says

    (I thought “в туман” must be a typo for “в тумане,” but all editions seem to have it.)

    Perfectly cromulent to me; it’s talking about the fog as an ambient condition rather than a covering. Something to the effect of “in foggy weather”. Same construction as the more common в дождь.

    EDIT: in retrospect I wonder if it’s one of those exotic Russian cases that aren’t taught in school.

  3. David Eddyshaw says

    All languages should have exotic cases.

    Ideally, they would be found only with nouns referring to aeroplanes, crochet, wild flowers and unusual sexual practices*, and only on alternate Thursdays. Their usage would be passed on in secret by grandmothers (but never to firstborn children.)

    Teaching them at school would (obviously) be forbidden.

    * And fog, obvs. By a natural association of ideas.

  4. Thanks to DLG and JFM for clearing up my uncertainties!

  5. @David L. Gold: The famous Battle of Nazareth (a constituent piece of the larger Battle of Megiddo*) didn’t take place until September 1918, so I don’t see how that could be what Bunin was referring to.

    When the Spring Offensives in France had left the Allies hard pressed earlier in 1918, the British had withdrawn some of their troops from Egypt and the Levant. This prompted the Ottomans to attempt a major offensive of their own. Had the Ottomans not attacked the British positions, the front in the Middle East might have remained relatively quiet, even as the other Central Powers were lurching toward collapse. However, after some victories pressing south toward the Allied stronghold in Egypt, the British counterattacked and continued to press their advantage after recapturing the lost territory. This culminated at the Battle of Megiddo, at which the Ottoman army in the region was totally rolled up, marking the final end of Ottoman control over the Levant.

    * The fighting took place around Nablus, Jenin, Nazareth, and multiple other locations. It covered quite a bit of territory, as sizeable set piece battles in the First World War typically did. There was not actually much action in the immediate vicinity of Tel Megiddo, but General Allenby** chose the name because of Megiddo’s symbolic connection to the Dagor Dagorath.

    ** Allenby’s name is probably only remembered in America because he was an important character in Lawrence of Arabia, played by Jack Hawkins.

    When my family first moved to Oregon in 1984, the first phone number we had had previously belonged to a Mr. Allenby. For months, we got calls asking for him. My parents thought it was creepy to receive so many (which seems quaint today). My father eventually took to telling the callers thar if Allenby was their dealer, he didn’t know how to get in contact with him.

  6. David L. Gold says

    @ Brett. You are right. I saw “1916” in LH’s post — “the bombing of Nazareth (I can find no reference to this — maybe a war rumor in 1916?” — and with that year in mind I misread “1918” in Wikipedia as “1916.”

  7. JFM, it seems to be just accusative case.

    ADDENDUM: Maybe, it was not bombing of Nazareth, but of Beersheba

  8. I’ll bet that’s it — well found!

  9. Nazareth is in the north of Palestine and thus was safely out of reach of British bombing. The frontline in 1916 was at the Suez Canal in Egypt, hundreds of miles to the south.

    The only air raid of notice at the time was bombing of Beersheba in the south of Palestine in November 1916.

    Perhaps that’s what Bunin read in the newspapers and then confused Biblical placenames.

  10. Well, there is in+ACC in adverbials of time: в пятницу, в Новый год. Of course, other cases are used too (в новом году) just like there are in, on, at in English. But maybe in+ACC for weather (в жару = в жаркую погоду “in hot weather”) is related.

    В туман is not surprising for me. I may use it when discussing driving (say, good and bad practices). “Я выехал в туман” and “он вышел в туман” both allow two interpretations, but without context I am more likely to understand the latter as “he went out into the fog”, and the former as “… when it was foggy/in foggy weather”. On the other hand, I am maybe more likely to continue “мы ехали в туман[ ]” with in+LOC “…в тумане” (referring to the physical condition or visial impression of being surrounded by fog, being within it) than with in+ACC “…в туман”.
    Outside of the context of driving fog does not play such a role in my life.

    But Pieter 100 years ago? When it starts raining in Moscow the crowd – if there was a crowd – becomes less dense and if it already looks like a tropical shower people run for shelter (leaving you alone, if you love rain). In Pieter you start looking around and then 2 seconds later you notice that as you were looking around everyone produced an umbrella from somewhere and the crowd is a sea of umbrellas.
    In sunny wearther it still can happen 5 times a day.

  11. Noosiform! Noosiform! Totally something I would *say*. But published as a translation?

    When there is even the genuine word “laqueiform” if ya gotta.

  12. I am not even sure if I ever heard or seen anyone else using петлистый.

    When the constrants are “expressing an unusual comparison with an adjective and sounding colloquially and expressive”, maybe it is the best choice. But apparently he used it because he liked the word rather than tried to satisfy any formal constraints.

    -истый usually expresses “covered by” as in лесистые холмы or “characterised by a prominent” as in голосистый. Often it is associated with a physical sensation produced by this quality as in шерстистый.
    Мясистые руки are characterized by abundance of meat or meaty sensation.

    When he uses it in the sense “twisting, meandering” (road), it is this usual sense of -истый.
    For рцы that has a loop (or maybe more in handwriting) it is still possible, though if it has only one loop it is a step away. It is still decorated/characterised by this element, it affects your visual impession (physical sensation). But it is not a loop, or loop-like. Just characterized by. For foliage and shadows it is the usual sense as well and clearly he likes it here because петлистый contains лист “leaf”. There is an onomatopetic quality to words like twist-lisp-list.

    I like this suffix, I like its semantics (cf. abotu sensations above), I like the sound.

    But with ears it is so unusual, that without the context I would rather think about ears covered with numerous little loops (or a fantastic form of piercing).

  13. January First-of-May says

    JFM, it seems to be just accusative case.

    Indeed; it’s hard to tell what’s “a function of Z case” and what’s a separate case. The exotic cases (e.g. locative, partitive) are apparently only separated because for a few particular words they don’t pattern with any other case.

    This particular construction is consistently identical with the accusative case, and thus gets called a function of the accusative, despite being clearly distinct from (though homophonous with*) the more traditionally accusative construction meaning “into X”.

    Outside of the context of driving fog does not play such a role in my life.

    Same for me – and I don’t even drive.

    When I tried to look up “в туман” in Google, most of the hits were for the “into fog” construction, but the few exceptions were almost always related to driving.

    Pieter

    …I don’t think I’ve seen this particular rendition of Питер before, but I like it already.

    I am not even sure if I ever heard or seen anyone else using петлистый.

    I think I’ve seen it applied to meandering roads, but still not anywhere else.

    But with ears it is so unusual, that without the context I would rather think about ears covered with numerous little loops

    Pretty much; well, that or ears so long they form into loops. Even with the context it sounds extremely weird.

     
    *) I’m actually not sure how that works; those two are very different constructions in my head, and apparently in drasvi’s head as well, but the actual forms appear to be always identical (except possibly in intonation, and even then I’m not very sure).

  14. I do not know why I used Pieter. It felt natural:) But it seems Peter the Great signed texts as “Piter” ( Pïter ???)

    A less common local apellation is Finnish (official) Pietari, pronounced by Russians are piyetari.

  15. Or is it Pïter as in two dots instead of superscript e?

    Then it is Pieter.

    “are piyetari.” I meant “as piyetari.”

  16. “В туман” – in this case – is the same construction as “в хорошую/плохую погоду,” “в непогоду,” “в жару,” “в бурю,” “в распутицу” and, more generally, “в войну,” “в бескормицу,” “в Смуту.” (I’m using 1st-declension nouns to show we’re dealing with the accusative case here.) Compare this line from one of Bunin’s poems: “Буду ждать в погоду, в непогоду…” Or this, in bureaucratese: “в туман и в дождь, а главное, в темное время суток, пешехода не всегда видно на дороге.”

  17. A good example of parallelism between adverbials of time and adverbials of [what we are discussing here].

    Moreover, в тёмное время суток already is hybrid: in dark time [of-day-night-cycle].

  18. Noosiform! Noosiform! Totally something I would *say*. But published as a translation?
    When there is even the genuine word “laqueiform” if ya gotta.

    Exactly!

    When he uses it in the sense “twisting, meandering” (road), it is this usual sense of -истый.
    For рцы that has a loop (or maybe more in handwriting) it is still possible, though if it has only one loop it is a step away. It is still decorated/characterised by this element, it affects your visual impession (physical sensation). But it is not a loop, or loop-like. Just characterized by. For foliage and shadows it is the usual sense as well and clearly he likes it here because петлистый contains лист “leaf”. There is an onomatopetic quality to words like twist-lisp-list.
    I like this suffix, I like its semantics (cf. abotu sensations above), I like the sound.
    But with ears it is so unusual, that without the context I would rather think about ears covered with numerous little loops (or a fantastic form of piercing).

    Thanks for this analysis, and I’m glad my own sense of the oddity of the word as applied to ears is shared by a native speaker. (The Ruscorpora citations of literary usage, if you want to see the full range; it seems Bunin is the first on record.)

  19. January First-of-May says

    if you want to see the full range

    Apparently outside of Bunin, quotations of Bunin, some references to ears that are probably allusions to Bunin, and Nabokov, all the other citations are in the “twisting, meandering” sense, referring to roads, paths, rivers, or (rarely) other kinds of line.

  20. Извилистый путь.
    Тернистый путь.
    Каменистая дорога в Дублин:-E

  21. Owlmirror says

    he calls himself a degenerate (выродок) and says that you can recognize degenerates, geniuses, vagrants, and murders by their loopy ears, which resemble the loop/noose with which they’re hanged

    I believe you meant “murderers”, there.

    I know that the idea that a person’s entire character can be discerned by physical traits is called physiognomy, and I wonder if Bunin came up with the idea of noose-like ears by himself, or from some other source.

    I note that the WIkiP page describes Cesare Lombroso’s ideas, and includes a list of traits of criminality, among which is “handle-shaped ears”. Could Bunin have read that, and turned it into “loopy”?

    Does Bunin otherwise go on about physiognomy?

  22. I believe you meant “murderers”, there.

    Oops, you’re right — haplogy at work! I’ll fix it.

    I note that the WIkiP page describes Cesare Lombroso’s ideas, and includes a list of traits of criminality, among which is “handle-shaped ears”. Could Bunin have read that, and turned it into “loopy”?

    Very likely; Lombroso was wildly popular back in those days.

  23. I have no doubt that “loopy ears” (as a remark, not the whole story) is a wink to Lombroso. But the whole story strongly suggest that some people are just immoral killers and there is nothing more to it. No depth, no philosophy. It’s eerie (my first use of this word!) how timely that warning was for Russia.

    The most striking item I learnt on the same WP page on Lombroso (great minds, you know) is that he specifically traveled to Russia to look at Tolstoy, because genius means crazy and crazy should have visible marks.

  24. Owlmirror says

    I wondered at “geniuses” being lumped in with “degenerates” and “vagrants”, but if Bunin was riffing off of Lombroso, that does fit.

  25. Was Петлистые уши an actual term used in Russian translations of Lombroso?

  26. Y, wonderfully, you are right.

    Wonderfully, because I believed (apparently, incorrectly) that it was a word common in Bunin’s idiolect.

  27. f…!
    loop. handle. loop. handle.

    It is jug/amphora handle!!!
    Tanto essi come gli stupratori hanno sovente il padiglione dell’orecchio che si inserisce quasi ad ansa sul capo.

    orecchie ad ansa, Google images.

  28. That’s what’s called Segelohren “sail(ing) ears” in German. I have them, so I hope my diagnosis is “genius” and not one of the other possibilities…

  29. You also can be a child.
    Also all things equal you are twice as likely to be male as female. If you live in 19th century Turin, of course…. Do you?

  30. Owlmirror says

    So now I’m wondering if Bunin was being straightforward, or ironic, in engaging with Lombardo.

    “Oh, yes, well, he had to commit murder. He had the wrong sort of ears, so no choice in the matter.”

  31. Owlmirror says

    Am I correctly inferring that Bunin wrote his narrator as being all of the things foreordained by his ears? A degenerate (by self-acclaim and actions); a vagrant (wandering the city), a genius (at describing the city), and (finally) a murderer?

  32. I am not going to spend much time with the matter, so I will dump preliminary results (links) here. The quotation above is from the first edition (1876) of L’uomo delinquente, p. 31.. The next page has “In genere, tutti i delinquenti hanno orecchi ad ansa, capelli ab- bondanti, scarsa la barba, seni frontali spiccati, mento sporgente, zigomi allargati, gesticolazione frequente.” and then numerous other mentions (search for “orecchie”).

    It seems publications called “editions” by Wikipedia and the Engish translation have different contents. See contents here (an English translation of 5 “editions”). The line is translated here: “Like rapists, they often have jug ears.“. In an older Englsih transltion there are “handle-shaped” and “projecting” ears.

    I found a modern Russian translation, its preface take a positive view on Lombroso’s contribution and speaks about him as a scientist unduly criticized by contemporaries rather than yet another bad dream of the century. But it seems L’uomo delinquente there is merely parts of – I think, the second – edition.

    I do not know what Russain translations existed in 19th century and were available to Bunin.

  33. This modern edition also has a text called “Новейшие успехи науки о преступнике” and there “Петлистые уши (á anse)” (sic). I am not sure if itis a new translation or a mere modernization of an earlier translation. I think the latter.

    I googled “á anse” (sic) and found someone’s post about петлистые уши in the context of Bunin.

    The author gives a link to a brochure from 1892, a translation ofL’anthropologie criminelle et ses récents progrès.

    It has “петлистыя уши (à anse)”. Its French original is here.

  34. Wow, what great finds. I wonder if anyone has noticed Bunin’s debt to Lombroso before?

    So now I’m wondering if Bunin was being straightforward, or ironic […].
    “Oh, yes, well, he had to commit murder. He had the wrong sort of ears, so no choice in the matter.”

    Keep in mind that’s a quote from a murderer within the story; it’s not Bunin speaking in propria persona. Of course, given his philosophy of life, Sokolovich would favor Lombroso and his loopy theories.

  35. Bunin’s interests were entirely different; he was having a bash at Dostoevsky’s (excessive, in his view) psychologizing.

  36. Apparently the Italian translator of Bunin didn’t recognize the connection: Orecchie a sventola e altre storie.

  37. An epigram by Tarkovsky (Arseny, the father of the film director) :

    Однажды, синий от мороза, / Я брёл со станции домой. / Добрёл, и тут же за Ломброзо, / Сижу, читаю… Боже мой!
    Свечи мигающее пламя / Ужасный образ создаёт: / С его нечистыми глазами, / С его петлистыми ушами, / Как в гробовой сосновой раме, / В дверях преступный тип встаёт.

    (from. A post predating the post mentioned above a mere couple of weeks – as I understand, a newspaper article by Gennady Karpenko, a professor from Samara.

    The same Karpenko published a chapter И.А. Бунин «о выродках» in a book in 2002,
    see reference 2 here)

  38. Bunin himself: «Тут главное – адский фон и на нем здоровенная и ужасная фигура. А согласись, что это удалось»

  39. That Tarkovsky poem is a great find.

  40. Apparently the Italian translator of Bunin didn’t recognize the connection: Orecchie a sventola e altre storie.”

    But the Italian translator was able to understand what sort of ears is meant here (unless there “ad ansa” is something more specific than mere лопоухий – I can’t be sure here). I was not.

    P.S. Advertisments of plastic surgery are depressive. Before: interesting ears. After: boring ears….No as bad as de-Iranizing Iranian noses, but still.

  41. Fifteen years later, Tadeusz Dołȩga-Mostowicz wrote about a thoroughly awful character he’d created, Co za czaszka, przecie to lombrozoska czaszka ‘Just look at this skull, it’s right out of Lombroso’.
    (I read the book when I was a kid, in Hebrew, and I find now that just last year an English translation came out.)

  42. I just checked the Национальный корпус русского языка, which has seven pages of hits for Ломброзо; I particularly liked this, from Yuly Aikhenvald’s Леонид Андреев (1910): “Мы говорим серьезно, о важном деле, а вы ― Ломброзо!” [We’re talking seriously, about an important matter, and you talk about Lombroso!] They have an obituary from «Русское слово», 1909: “Умер Цезарь Ломброзо Мы не очень-то хорошо знакомы даже со своими крупными учеными, но имя Ламброзо известно у нас даже в самых широких кругах публики.” [Cesare Lombroso has died. We are not very well acquainted even with our own major scholars, but the name Lombroso is known here even among the widest circles of the public.] Doroshevich mentions him several times in his book on Sakhalin; the last cite: “Нет ничего удивительного в ошибке Ломброзо: он наблюдал преступников в итальянских тюрьмах, а среди итальянцев ― моряков больше, чем среди какого бы то ни было народа.” [There’s nothing surprising in Lombroso’s error: he studied criminals in Italian prisons, and there are more sailors among the Italians than among any other people.] Kropotkin mentions him several times in his memoirs, in one place complaining that he shouldn’t have studied only prisoners. The earliest cites are from 1893.

  43. Lombroso wrote Gli Anarchici. Published in 1894. In the collection (in Russian) that I linked above (here) Kropotkin mentioned several times, alongside with a few other Russians (among them his occasional co-author Pauline Tarnowsky).

  44. This Russian translation (the one that has петлистые уши) is strange:
    …et que Mme. Tarnowsckyi a mis en parallèle les femmes criminelles avec les villageoises et les dames russes.
    …а Тарновская сопоставляла преступниц с крестьянками и русскими женщинами.
    “compared female criminals to peasants (fem.) and Russian women

  45. I am quite sure by “les dames” the author meant ladies from educated class.

  46. Not quite relevant, but I believe борцун has not made an appearance on the site yet.

    Данные по числу курящих и больных КОВИД-19 скрываются. Лишь иногда просачиваются данные в научных журналах. Борцуны с курением пытаются найти связь между курящими и заболеваемостью КОВИД-19 и не находят. Все выходит с точностью наоборот. Доля курильшиков в населении, намного выше, чем доля курильщиков больных ковидом.

    https://genby.livejournal.com/863196.html

    Бывший президент Тоомас Ильвес предложил защититься от враждебного государства, просто закрыв европейскую границу для россиян. Это пример так называемого «борцуна за мировую справедливость», пишет автор. И добавляет, что призывы к радикальным санкциям в адрес России вредят самим европейцам.

    https://inosmi.ru/politic/20210426/249634908.html

    Удивляют меня некоторые борцуны за либерализм, демократию и всяческие ценности.. Ведь на поверку выходит что смысл того, за что они борются им не ясен, а предлагаемые методы борьбы вообще не совместимы с какой-либо государственностью, правами, свободами и порядком.

    https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2020/10/09/state-of-emergency/

  47. борцун — находка для шпиона

  48. SFReader, absolutely. But what the translator meant by “русские женщины” is unclear.

    The text called “Преступный человек” there is even more interesting. In English version:

    “It is apparent, then, that these crimes are most frequent in the provinces where the population is predominantly Semitic (Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria) or purely Latin (Latium, Abruzzo), as compared with those where the population is Teutonic, Ligurian, Celtic (Lombardy, Liguria, Piedmont), or Slavic (Venetia). Now beside the original inhabitants, the Ligurians in the north, the Umbrians and Etruscans in the center, the Oscans in the south, and the Siculi, of Ligurian origin, in Sicily, the principal social elements of the Italian population are the Teutons, Celts, and Slavs in the north, the Phenicians, Arabs, Albanians, and Greeks in the south and on the islands. It is, then, to the African and oriental elements (the Greeks excepted) that Italy owes the frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia; while the occurrence of a smaller number, as in Lombardy, is due to the large Teutonic element in the population.”

    Now, the line “the principal social elements of the Italian population are” in French and Italian is

    les races qui concoururent le plus à déterminer le caractère ethnique des différentes régions italieimes furent…
    le stirpi che più concorsero a determinare il carattere etnico delle varie regioni italiane, sono…
    and in Russian it is:

    Действительно, кроме главнейших этнических особенностей, сообщенных населению Италии лигурийцами на севере, умбрами и этрусками в центре и осками на юге, кроме этнического влияния в Сицилии сикулов лигурийского происхождения, больше всего способствовали порче этнического характера различных итальянских областей германцы, кельты и славяне на севере, финикийцы, арабы, албанцы и греки на юге и на островах.

  49. To sum up, петлистые уши is a misleading Russian translation of orecchie ad ansa. The Italian expression refers not to the shape of one’s ears but to their angle relative to the cranium: jug ears, simply put.

    All human ears are broadly similar in shape to jug handles but not all stick out like them. The Russian translator ignored the primary meaning of ansa, picking instead a secondary meaning, “loop” or “curve,” to come up with петлистые.

    What Bunin meant by петлистые уши is a different question. His character says they resemble a hangman’s noose but that doesn’t help much.

    To some degree, Bunin subscribed to physiognomy in the spirit of Lombroso, at least in the 1910s and the 1920s. His 1918-19 diary, Cursed Days, includes a few thoughts on the matter. The diary reads like a chronicle of congenital criminals akin to Sokolovich taking over Russia.

  50. Собачье сердце
    P.S.but no. Sharikov did not ‘take over’.

  51. John Cowan says

    It is, then, to the African and oriental elements (the Greeks excepted) that Italy owes the frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia; while the occurrence of a smaller number, as in Lombardy, is due to the large Teutonic element in the population.

    How about “weak and corrupt central government” and “aristocrats as thugs”?

  52. You also can be a child.
    Also all things equal you are twice as likely to be male as female. If you live in 19th century Turin, of course…. Do you?

    From what I heard, it seems to have been an interesting place, but no, since my time machine broke down, I’m forced to live in this time and age… 😉

  53. SFReader says

    Surely the Italians can safely blame everything on Spanish colonialism.

  54. How about “weak and corrupt central government” and “aristocrats as thugs”?

    But it is a cultural trait.

  55. I did not translate the Russian translation. It says that Germans, Celts, and Slavs in the north and the Phoenicians, Arabs, Albanians, and Greeks in the south contributed the most in corruption of the ethnic character of various Italian provinces.

    Violent Arabs, advanced Greeks and calm Slavs spoiled the idyll of… violent Latins:-/

  56. am i really the first to not be able to get “noösiform ears” out of my head? so be it.
    i will leave the elaboration of their relevance to lombroso’s system as an exercise for, well, whoever.

  57. Just came across one example of locative-accusative distinction in Russian that did not occure to me.

    под угрозы – under threats ACC.
    Accompanied by threatening words, X is doing something while hearing Y (generalized Y:-)) who is issuing threats.

    под угрозой (-ами is possible but less idiomatic) under threat INSTR.
    Threatened.

    In this case it is Instrumental, but the function is locative.

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