"And we will bury you!" and other phrases that remained as a memory of Khrushchev and his times

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For some, the period of Khrushchev's rule is the Thaw, the resettlement of communal apartments and flights into space. For some - the shooting of workers in Novocherkassk, the destruction of agriculture and persecution of the priesthood. In any case, it was a bright period of Soviet and Russian history, and it left a big mark after itself - including in our language. Here are a few phrases that were spoken under Khrushchev and which we still use today.

Khrushchev's quotes

As secretary general of the USSR, Khrushchev made frequent speeches. We still actively use some phrases from there - mostly in an ironic sense.

“Our goals are clear”, sometimes - “Our goals are clear, to work, comrades!” - This is a truncated quote from Khrushchev's speech at the party congress in 1962. The Soviet Union has just launched a man into space, Soviet satellites are flying in orbit, Komsomol members are going to the virgin lands with songs, Castro declared socialism in Cuba, a Soviet doctor in Antarctica himself cut out his appendix - in general, against the background of all this amazing news, the speech was received with genuine enthusiasm, and the slogan about goals was adorned with all offices, schools, military units and just streets. The phrase has become a catch phrase - now it would be called a meme.

"History is on your side, and we will bury you!" - this aggressive phrase is actually also truncated and, moreover, changed. Khrushchev himself used the word “bury” in conversation with foreign diplomats, referring to Marx's thesis that the proletariat is the gravedigger of capitalism. The diplomats did not read Marx and took the phrase literally; already in our time, Stalinists love to write it in discussions without any irony (and many of them are sure that it was uttered by Stalin).

"I'll show you Kuz'kina's mother!" - Khrushchev liked to use this folk euphemism for a more juicy folk expression, where his mother also appeared, but it is no longer known whose. He remembered Kuzma's mother several times in his speeches addressed to the capitalists. The translators had to get out of it, putting forward the option “I'll show you what is what!” - much less threatening. However, Khrushchev, moreover, actively used intonation, facial expressions and gestures, and it was not possible to smooth out the impression of the phrase.

“What kind of faces, what kind of freaks?” And “What a disgrace, what kind of freaks” is also a truncated part of Nikita Sergeevich’s monologue, but “faces” and “freaks” in this speech did not refer to people, but to canvases abstractionists. Now the phrase is already used to insult - in the comments on the Internet and it is about people. From the same monologue, the phrase "All this is not necessary for the Soviet people."

Other quotes

"Go!" - the phrase with which Gagarin went into space in 1961. It instantly became popular, and it is used, offering to start literally any business, and not just get started.

"And who ranked me among the human race?" - this rhetorical question is still popular in narrow circles and is a quote from Brodsky's remarks in court. He was tried as a parasite (unwilling to work) and was asked on what grounds he considered himself a poet, who ranked him as such.

A huge number of quotes were presented by the film of Khrushchev's time “Welcome, or No Unauthorized Entry”.“If I were a woman, I would be a champion”, “You are the owners of the camp”, “What are you doing here? Huh?”,“You arrange Babylon on your head”,“Where to put something?”,“Here the audience is applauding, applauding … Finished applauding!” - these phrases can be heard all the time. Or see it in the posts of bloggers.

Other films of the Thaw presented phrases like: "Pension and Dance Ensemble" ("Carnival Night"), "Gogol was born in the Pushkin family", "It's not a mustache" ("Spring on a street across the river"), "With raspberry jam", “Do the housewives have a weekend?”, “Chumodan, chumodan” (“Come tomorrow”), “Ikhtia-a-andr!”, “People called me the sea devil”, “Sailor, you swam too long” (“Amphibian Man”),“Like schizophrenic dolphins”,“Chest, not a man”,“Jackson turned out to be a woman”(“Three plus two”),“Would they send better vodka!”,“Cornet, are you a woman?”, "My God, what a passage!" (“The Hussar Ballad”).

In the sixties, the expression “Physics versus lyricists” also appeared - about two different types of dreamers and about who can understand more about the world. It is rooted in a poem by Boris Slutsky: “Something physics is held in high esteem. // Something lyric in the paddock. // It's not about dry calculation, // It's about the world law."

The Secretary General's speeches were remembered not only by words: Why Khrushchev's speeches during his first visit to the United States were more popular than football, but it all ended in diplomatic failure.