Tag Archives: russia

Superstition about Fixing Clothes

Nationality: Russian-Jewish
Age: 53
Occupation: Mathematician
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 11, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, Hebrew

Background: “I grew up in Lithuania, and in Lithuania, you have Poles and Lithuanians who are Catholic, Russians who are Russian Orthodox, and Jews. We were a Jewish family, and I was always told that Jews do not have superstitions. But all my friends were either Polish or Russians, and they had superstitions, and eventually, I felt like, ‘well, it’s safer to believe in it.’”

Superstition about Fixing Clothes: “If something was torn on me and needed to be fixed fast, my mom would take a thread and sew, let’s say a button or something like that. I would be given a little piece of the thread to keep in my mouth, in order not to sew my brain out. If you don’t suck on the thread, then your brain can get sewn onto the garment and you would be stupid.”

Q. Do you know where this came from?

A. That came from my mother, and she came from Belarus, so it must come from Belarus.

Analysis: It is fascinating to compare my informant’s account with a description of this same superstition that Alan Dundes gives in International Folkloristics: “Or take the Jewish superstition that claims it is very bad luck to repair a garment while that garment is being worn by an individual. Once one realizes that the only time a garment is sewn on a person is when a body is being prepared for burial, one can understand the custom. In other words, repairing a garment—for example, by sewing on a button—is enacting a funeral ritual . . . In such instances the person wearing the garment being repaired must chew on bread or thread to counteract the potential danger” (Dundes 115).

When I shared this passage with my informant, she said that his logic makes sense to her, although she had never heard his explanation before; she had always thought the warning about one’s brains being sewn to be silly, but had never been told any better reasons for the tradition. Perhaps, this is because in more recent societies, people are far enough removed from the practices surrounding death that they no longer carry the associations responsible for this superstition. Meanwhile, although my informant comes from a Jewish family, she knows nothing about this superstition being Jewish, only that she learned it from her mother. She also never heard that bread—as opposed to thread—can counteract the potential danger.

“The Principles of Sympathetic Magic.” International Folkloristics. Alan Dundes, ed. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999. Print.

Russian Superstition about Black Cats

Nationality: Russian-Jewish
Age: 53
Occupation: Mathematician
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 11, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, Hebrew

Background: “I grew up in Lithuania, and in Lithuania, you have Poles and Lithuanians who are Catholic, Russians who are Russian Orthodox, and Jews. We were a Jewish family, and I was always told that Jews do not have superstitions. But all my friends were either Polish or Russians, and they had superstitions, and eventually, I felt like, ‘well, it’s safer to believe in it.’”

Black cat superstition:

“If you walk and a black cat crosses the road in front of you, you’re supposed to turn around over your left shoulder three times and spit over your left shoulder three times. And I would do that, just in case.

“There were four girls in my big apartment building who were the same age, and we would walk to school together. And if there was a black cat crossing the road in front of us, we would all start turning and spitting. In fact, that’s why I have this superstition. It didn’t come from my mother—my mother always said that we shouldn’t believe in that, even though she believed in cracked mirrors. But I started believing it because the other girls did it.

“I’m sure that belief is Russian because there is a Russian song about a black cat. It’s about a black cat who lives behind the corner, and everybody hates him because there is this saying that you would have bad luck if you meet a black cat. But the truth is that it’s only the black cat who constantly has bad luck. That’s what the song is about. And that was a very popular Russian song. It appeared in the 1970s, when I was a kid.”

Q. Why do you think that this superstition exists?

A. In some of the Russian fairytales, you have a witch, Baba Yaga, and she always has a black cat with her. So, it is an element from Russian fairytales. Perhaps that’s why, I don’t know.

Analysis: The custom of turning and spitting is interesting, especially because it must be done specifically over one’s left shoulder. The practice seems to be almost an attempt to reverse time, as if to undo the effects of the bad luck.

The informant mentions a song about a black cat (“Chernyj Kot”), which pokes fun at the superstition, laughingly conveying the message that people should not discriminate against black cats. (After all, cats cannot control the color of their fur!)

Transliterated lyrics to this song can be found here:

“Chernyj Kot.” Lyrics Time. www.lyricstime.com, 2002. Web. 26 April 2012. <http://www.lyricstime.com/aguzarova-zhanna-chernyj-kot-lyrics.html>.

Women Day

Nationality: Russian/Ukrainian/American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Las Vegas
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

My informant told me of a holiday that his family celebrated. The following is a transcript of our interview:

 

“informant: Every year on March 8th, we celebrate Women Day. Its from Ukraine, where my family is from. Basically men get the important women in their lives (wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, etc) flowers. Like valentines day but you just honor women. Our family does more than flowers though; gifts to show our appreciation for women. It is pretty big over in Europe, like if you don’t celebrate it as a man you’re the biggest piece of shit. It is very important over there to celebrate women.”

 

My informant  reveres the holiday, and says honoring women is important to his family and their culture, claiming they are all brought up as “momma’s boys.”

 

This holiday empowers a underprivileged group (women do not share equal rights with men in many places). Thus, the outrage towards men who don’t celebrate it aimed towards their insensitivity and disregard for the female gender. This celebrates the female identity, reinforcing women’s identities.

 

An article on this can be found on wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women’s_Day

Russian Proverb about Driving Slowly

Nationality: Russian-Jewish
Age: 53
Occupation: Mathematician
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 11, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, Hebrew

“Driving slower, you will advance further.”

Transliteration: “Tishe edesh – dalshe budesh.”

Q. What does this proverb mean?

A. The meaning is that if you do things slower, you will get further. It’s like saying, “Wait a minute, don’t hurry.” My brother would always say this, for instance, if I did a math problem and wanted to skip steps—if you do everything slower, part by part, you will do better in the end.

This proverb has an English analogue: “Slow and steady wins the race.” Yet, comparing these two versions, we can see that the American version has a much more competitive spirit than the Russian version, as it focuses upon winning. According to my informant, the Russian version refers to riding a horse; if one rides a horse too fast, the horse may become fatigued or sustain an injury. Thus, the Russian proverb focuses not upon winning, but rather upon not losing, not overtiring one’s horse.

Annotation: Writer Mikhail Zeldovich utilizes this proverb in an article concerning Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), commenting upon Russia’s slow, snail-paced progress of accession to the organization:

Zeldovich, Mikhail. “Slowly Going Nowhere: Russia’s Entry to the WTO Falters as Major Exporters Fight Shy of Membership.” The Russia Journal, 19 Nov. 2002. Web. 26 April 2012. <http://russiajournal.com/node/12071>.