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Where and when did the phrase in question originate? Was it the invention of Soviet propaganda, or did authorities themselves adopted the earlier phrase from other literary sources? Could it be used in its disdainful connotation by earlier religious critic or someone on either side of Orientalist/Occidentalist (as the case may have been in Russia) debate?

Obviously, the literal and neutral meaning “their customs” as used by, say, an anthropologist is clear. When and how did “customs” became explicitly “their”?

Где и когда появилась фраза «их нравы»? Было ли это изобретением советской пропаганды или власти в свою очередь взяли эту фразу из других литературных источников? Могла ли она быть использована с пренебрежительной коннотацией ранним религиозным критиком или, быть может, ориенталистом.

Очевидно, что буквальный и нейтральный смысл фразы, как используемой, скажем, антропологом, понятен. Когда и как «нравы» стали недвусмысленно «их»?

theUg
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  • Some answers on when this phrase came to life can be found here http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%D0%B8%D1%85+%D0%BD%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8B&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=25&smoothing=3&share= – Trident D'Gao Jan 02 '13 at 03:36
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    Скорее всего этот штамп закрепился как название газетной рубрики, в которую помещали новости отражающие "падение буржуазной морали". – Artemix Jan 02 '13 at 13:22
  • @Artemix, я понимаю, как он закрепился. Меня интересует, почему эту рубрику так назвали в первую очередь. – theUg Jan 09 '13 at 16:10

3 Answers3

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Just as a theory that has a chance of being true.

In "Кавказский пленник" by А. С. Пушкин one may meet the following:

Но европейца всё вниманье
Народ сей чудный привлекал.
Меж горцев пленник наблюдал
Их веру, нравы, воспитанье,
Любил их жизни простоту,
Гостеприимство, жажду брани,
Движений вольных быстроту,
И легкость ног, и силу длани;
Смотрел по целым он часам,
Как иногда черкес проворный,
Широкой степью, по горам,
В косматой шапке, в бурке черной,
К луке склонясь, на стремена
Ногою стройной опираясь,
Летал по воле скакуна,
К войне заране приучаясь.

Considering the enormous success the poem enjoyed right after its publication, it had plenty of time to form some popular quotations, one of which (or the unchanged passage) could just come across someone's mind when writing the aforementioned newspaper headline.

Const
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  • That phrase in literal sense, as I noted in my question, had been used long enough, and there are plenty examples. I specifically talk about disparaging connotation. – theUg Feb 02 '13 at 00:41
  • @theUg Isn't the "We, the people of the country where Communism has won" vs. "They, the countries of rotting imperialism" enough to make "Us vs. them" have special meaning? I think Const's answer is correct. In early years of Soviet Russia there were plenty of people that had "tsarist" education and popular Pushkin citation in new context may become instantly popular. – Artemix Apr 10 '13 at 13:36
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I'm not sure that we can really find the sourse of the phrase. There can be dozens of theories. For example:

Castigat ridento mores «Смехом бичуют нравы» Девиз театра комедии (Opera Comique) в Париже. Первоначально - девиз итальянской труппы комического актера Доминика (Dominico Brancolelli) в Париже, сочиненный для нее новолатинским поэтом Сантелем (XVII в.).

There was a period in Russia when French culture (Paris theatre is a part of) was very popular (just try to start reading Война и Мир, you'll see :-), and it could easily come frome there.

Then, just because this is not a Russian slogan, "their" appears, to accent that this is not russian, это их нравы, not ours.

So the common ironic meaning of the source transforms into irony about THEM, not us.

That was just an example. It could be so, definitely before USSR.

Maxim Ephimov
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The phrase obtained its second life in the eighties of the Soviet Union soon after the underground release of casset album of the same name by a pseudo-punk band ДК (1983).

This is the first recorded example of the mocking sense given to this phrase.

More information (in Russian) is available at

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0_%28%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BC%29

Lets's look at the history of the subject. The oldest examples of the phrase can be traced back as long as to the 18th century. The phrase then used to be a part of three-dimetional paradigm accompanied by two cognates, namely

их нравы/нравы их

сих нравы/нравы сих

оных нравы/нравы оных

Notice that prepositional pronoun combination stands mainly for compound subject, while postpositional pronoun combiation stands mainly for compound object/adverbial; see e.g. Rodionova (2001) and Dyakonova (2009). By the beginning of 1800 их нравы/нравы их began the most frequently used combination.

Before 1850s both directions were used. However, их нравы became predominant by that time, not being a cliché yet.

Manjusri
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    First, you are referencing an album which hardly can be called influential in any sense, especially in context of this very question. Second, the question was about the origin of the phrase, not about any kind of post-modernist quotation. – shabunc Jan 06 '13 at 22:07
  • First, the album was influential because it was a good representation of Soviet rock (or Russian rock) in general and that of (pseudo)pank rock in particular. Also, it was the first recorded example of a satirical usage of propaganda cliché. Maverick bifurcations often give a start to non-linear probabilities and events development of 'black swan' type. Second, the question was about the origin of the phrase, which implies the whole story of the phrase meaning throughout the history of its existence, including its modern, post-modernist meaning. – Manjusri Jan 07 '13 at 18:31
  • PS To understand the present, we should know the past, and knowing the past we get the whole picture. – Manjusri Jan 07 '13 at 18:32
  • Manjusri, you talk about "its second life". What about its first life? The reference to the album is OK (also proving its importance) but not sufficient. Try to explain also the path that this expression had, of course as long as you manage to find references, not all expressions have a clear history but you should be able to report something here. :) – Alenanno Jan 09 '13 at 09:23
  • Can you provide the source of the new addition to this post (by the way, it is always a good idea to give credit where it is due). Also, it does not address the question posed, but I would like to review the source to see if there is something to it. – theUg Jan 15 '13 at 01:42
  • I've used the authors mentioned and the Google search together with my knowledge. Which kind of source are you referring to? – Manjusri Jan 15 '13 at 05:28
  • Saying “Rodionova (2001)” does not mean a thing. Cite the actual work, put it in context. Humour me this: did you ever write a basic university-level research paper? Why do I have to explain the very fundamentals? – theUg Jan 16 '13 at 08:44
  • BTW, when answering comments to anyone except the author of the post you are commenting on, use @nick construct (@theUg in my case). Otherwise no one would get notification of your reply. – theUg Jan 16 '13 at 08:46
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    @Manjusri google is a bad assistant for finding an origin of something. The phrase definitely had existed long before the album you mentioned. Unless you have investigated the topic by yourself or found an explicit investigation of a source, you have no relevant information. – Netch Jan 17 '13 at 07:55
  • Scanned Google books are good assistants, though. If you have read the whole text of my aswer, you might have noticed that it covers the period from the 18th century. – Manjusri Jan 17 '13 at 08:25
  • @theUg We have the Internet and we all know how to google by a keyword, right? And this is not a university-level research paper. This is a Q/A forum. – Manjusri Jan 17 '13 at 08:27
  • There is a difference between SE, and, say, Yahoo.Answers. And in general, quoting sources without citing them is considered plagiarism. – theUg Jan 17 '13 at 14:43
  • As for Google.books, note that it does not find any occurrences of that phrase in XVIII century. Obviously, because many of those works are yet to be scanned. Just to show the limitation of that method. – theUg Jan 17 '13 at 14:46
  • Long words don't make one's thought clearer. – Manjusri Jan 17 '13 at 20:47
  • @Manjusri, you mean words like “psycholinguistics”, or “phonosemantics”? – theUg Feb 01 '13 at 17:14
  • I mean the words like 'assistant' pro 'helper' or 'tool – Manjusri Feb 02 '13 at 07:40
  • Comments removed. Please keep the discussion civil, and actually if you need to discuss, bring it to chat since long comment threads are discouraged on the site. Thanks. – Alenanno Feb 02 '13 at 23:30
  • @theUg: c e.g. Trediakovsky's usage of сей/сии: http://www.rvb.ru/18vek/trediakovsky/01text/02theory/140.htm – Manjusri Mar 02 '13 at 17:06
  • Any b.a.s.i.c knowledge of Russian literature might help :-))) – Manjusri Mar 02 '13 at 17:07