Russian politically correct word for an ethnic Jew
Person of Jewish ethnicity (Russian: Лицо еврейской национальности) is а Russian circumlocution used as an euphemism for "Jew".
The word "Jew" was occasionally avoided in the Soviet Union as it perceived as pejorative due to antisemitism in the Soviet Union.[1][2][3] Writer Vladimir Voinovich described this perception as follows:
The word "Jew" is not censored, but it is used in a scientific sense, like the Latin "penis". Sometimes it is necessary to say this word, but when pronouncing it there is a hesitation, the speaker tries to pass it inconspicuously through and immediately move on. A person calls himself Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar as simply as a mechanic, a baker, an engineer, but everyone who says "I’m a Jew" somehow tenses up and either squeezes it out as a confession, or says with a challenge: "yes, I Jew, so what?"[2]
Notable Soviet antisemitic campaigns included the Doctor's Plot, the struggle against the "rootless cosmopolitans" and the crackdown on the movement of refuseniks. However, the entire Jewish population was never openly and officially declared the enemy of the people.[2] Instead, several dog whistles were used, such as Zionists, rootless cosmopolitans and "persons of Jewish ethnicity". There was an important distinction between these words: zionist and rootless cosmopolitans served as a label for "bad Jews" as enemies of the state, whereas "persons of Jewish ethnicity" was a politically correct expression for "good", loyal Jews, who were called by some ordinary folks as trained Jews ("дрессированные евреи").[2] Regardless, most people realized that all these euphemisms denoted all Jews. A dean of the Marxism-Leninism department at one of the Soviet universities explained the policy to his students:[2]
One of you asked if our current political campaign can be regarded as antisemitic. Comrade Stalin said: "We hate Nazi[s] not because they are Germans, but because they brought enormous suffering to our land". Same can be said about the Jews.
The similar circumlocution "person of Caucasian ethnicity" (Russian: лицо кавказской национальности) is a term used in modern Russia to refer to persons who look like peoples of the Caucasus, such as Georgians, Armenians or Chechens, despite it perceived as offensive. In fact, unlike Jewish ethnicity, there is no ethnological term "Caucasian ethnicity".[1]
Other terms with the pattern "person of X ethnicity" include "person of southern ethnicity", person of Slavic ethnicity", and "persons of nonindigenous ethnicities".[4]
^ ab«Лицо национальности». Неполиткорректность в русском языке, Radio Liberty
^ abcdeBenedikt Sarnov, Our Soviet Newspeak: A Short Encyclopedia of Real Socialism, Moscow: 2002, ISBN 5-85646-059-6 (Наш советский новояз. Маленькая энциклопедия реального социализма.), "Persons of Jewish ethnicity", pp. 287–293.
^Person of Jewish ethnicity, RFE/RL[dead link]
^Грищенко А.И. Социокультурная дифференциация современной русской экспрессивной этнонимии: социальный, региональный и идеологический аспекты
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