Putin’s obscenity ban will make profanity thrive

On May 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin banned four Russian words from use in public spaces such as concert halls, movie theaters and theaters. The new law also dictates that all books and CDs tainted by those words be carefully sealed and labeled “contains obscenity.”

Yes, these words are obscene, but they also happen to be some of the most powerful, juicy and versatile words in the Russian language.

The ban appears to be a logical next step in Putin’s agenda to return Russia to conservative values and, simultaneously, stick it to the decadent West. First, there was his overwhelming display of support for the Russian Orthodox Church. Then came the infamous anti-gay laws barring gay couples from adopting children and prohibiting homosexual propaganda among people under 21. (Under this law, anything could be viewed as a propaganda, even a simple mention that a character in a book or movie is gay.) And now an attack on the very heart of the country’s culture — the Russian language itself.

The four words in question are “huj,” “pizda,” “blyad’” and “ebat’.” All of them have their original sexual meaning (“huj,” the male sexual organ; “pizda,” the female sexual organ; “blyad’,” “whore”; and “ebat’,” “to penetrate” or “to f---”). While they keep their original definitions, they also have acquired countless forms and meanings through centuries of frequent use, which came to be a language inside a language with its own name: mat. The incredible versatility of Russian obscenities sets them apart from obscenities in other languages.

The 12-volume “Dictionary of Russian Mat” boasts 1,200 terms containing the root “huj,” expressing anything from aggression to delight to indifference. To give just a few examples:

“Poshel na huj” means “Go to hell” or, one might say, “F--- you.”

“Huj s nim” means “I don’t care” or “F--- it.”

“Hujnya” means “nonsense” or “bull----.”

“Ohuitel’no” is used to express admiration and delight.

The flexibility of the Russian language makes it possible to create countless words from the same root by adding various prefixes or suffixes. This flexibility can be applied to any root, but Russian speakers, perhaps, feel particularly compelled to apply it to these four special words; there are thousands of variations.

What had always given a special punch to the words of mat is their obscene status in the eyes of the law. There hasn’t been a time when the use of mat wasn’t prohibited at least to some degree. The laws limiting its use could be more or less severe, but until the perestroika period of the 1990s and 2000s, mat always kept its underground standing. 

I grew up in the Soviet Union, where all official use of mat was prohibited in a similar way to what Putin’s new law proposes. Publishers wouldn’t print books or articles that had mat words, and the passages from classical texts (by Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov) that contained them were deleted or changed. All these printed materials went underground, to samizdat, where dedicated people would copy prohibited materials and distribute them among friends. Nobody was allowed to use mat words and expressions at official gatherings, but, of course, people used them all the time in private. I was still very young when I understood that mat served two completely different purposes. One was the usual purpose of profanity: to offend, to express discontent and aggression. I was used to hearing mat on the streets or seeing it on public restroom walls. That mat wasn’t shocking; it was just a natural part of the rude, discontented and rather aggressive world I lived in. But whenever I happened to hear a mat word from my nonconformist relatives, or see it in a samizdat edition of a Russian classic, it felt like a thunderbolt. These people used mat not just to express sadness of aggression; they used it beautifully and creatively to enhance their point, defy Soviet conventions, subvert meaning and revive the stagnating language of a stagnating country.

I will never forget the thrill of hearing the mat version of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin.” An unknown but apparently very talented contemporary Russian poet rewrote Pushkin’s masterpiece using mat words in every single sentence. The poem was copied and circulated the samizdat way. It was hilarious, shocking and deeply affecting. (So affecting, in fact, that I fell in love with the man who recited it to me.)

After perestroika, the laws became much more lax, and mat language started to appear in books, articles, theater performances and even public speeches. At first it was exciting. “Wow! I can’t believe they said ‘huj’ right on stage!” And a lot of artists jumped at the opportunity to be creative with mat. The postmodernist writer Vladimir Sorokin has hilarious passages in his novels in which he deconstructs mat by stripping the expressions of the layers of acquired meaning down to the original core. For example, in “The Hearts of the Four,” he mocks the expression “ebat’ mozgi,” which means “to bull--- somebody,” by making his character drill a hole in another character’s skull and sexually penetrate his brains.

But after decades of mat overuse, people became sated with profanity and somewhat numb to its power. By losing their underground status, the words and expressions of mat gradually lost their punch. They weren’t shocking or exciting anymore; they became just profanities as in any language — ugly and boring.

Now Putin is trying lock those words up again. What he probably doesn’t realize is that the ban is granting mat underground status again, and the underground is exactly where it will thrive and inspire creativity.