Talk:Personification of Russia

Translation
It's Матушка Россия as far as I know and Матушка does not translate as "mother" it is actually a diminutive od "mother". Please check it as I'm, like I said, not that sure about the correct translation. I do know the current one is rather incorrect though! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.223.57.22 (talk) 16:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Both this article and Mother Motherland appear to have limited opportunities for expansion, and they're essentially covering the same topic. They both say Mother Motherland was a term preferred to Mother Russia under the Soviet Union, which to me is a strong indication that they're two names for the same national personification. I don't see any reason why Mother Motherland's list of monuments can't be merged here as well; one of them is even called Mother Russia. --BDD (talk) 05:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I should add that I prefer Mother Russia as the destination because it's much more common in English. Compare (2,370,000 hits) and  (110,000 hits). --BDD (talk) 05:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Expanding the scope will help the article be improved. Ryan Vesey 12:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation
This article needs pronunciation guides (IPA) & preferably sound samples. I am only an amateur of Russian pron., but I found a sound sample en.wiktionary.org ро́дина that gave ро́дина roh'-dee-na, which is unusual as 'о́' in Russian is usually short, as in "vodka" (во́дка). I defer to an expert, as I know Russian has its esceptions and traditions, not to speak of the disparity between current urban & rural/emigré pronunciations. D A Patriarche, BSc (talk) (talk) 22:09, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It sounds exactly the same as in vodka. rodʲɪnə / ˈvotkə. That's what Wiktionary says, and that's my experience as a native Russian speaker. --Humanophage (talk) 07:18, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

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There is no such word as "motherland" in Russian
As the headline says, there is no such word as "motherland". Only "fatherland" and "homeland". And even "homeland the mother" is not "motherland". Thus i state that this article was written in a typical fashion of foreign researchers/article writers of transposing the habits from their first language into foreign affairs. Als o, am i the only one who finds the pleonasm «Mother Motherland» to be extremely foreign and ridiculous? 46.242.74.209 (talk) 11:06, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to find out how these monuments are actually called in English. Yes mother motherland sounds kinda weird, but родина semantically is motherland, not Vaterland, nor homeland.- Altenmann >talk 00:57, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Semantically-wise, if you want to put up the topic of semantics, motherland is already mother. I see here the example of absurdum. Again, semantically — it is what is it, and if you did decide to put up the question of semantics — go a bit deeper than the surface. You, generally speaking, justifying the phrase [let's continue the semantic dissection] "mother «land which is the mother»". And that is why I plainly cannot understand your position. Also, just to remind and give a somewhat relevant parallel, the word "совет" has a very interesting fate in English: sometimes it is, what a miracle, a word with an equivalent in English, but most of the times it is the mega unique super-duper and, allegedly, UNTRANSLATABLE word. So, what are the conclusions that we can learn from that? Pardon, I wonder, what will semantics say about the most popular case? Can I make an assumption that it'll turn out that the word "soviet" has a stand-alone meaning in English? 46.242.74.209 (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Unusual Misgendering
Today a Google search for "Russia herself" was indexed 61,900 times, whereas "Russia itself" was indexed 467,000 times. The usage of "Russia herself" grates not only because it is unusual to assign gender to English nouns, but because it is misgendered in Russian. Germanic and Slavic countries self-identify as "Fatherlands." So, whereas someone who would write "Russia herself" might think this lends an air of authenticity or familiarity to the text, the effect is actually jarring. Compare with "The United States of America herself" (Google 42 times) and "The United States of America itself" (Google 135,000 times). To write an entire Wikipedia article about an awkward, grating, infrequently-applied, culturally-misappropriated, misgendered word choice that only a monolingual English teacher could double down on is especially disturbing in this era of misattributing everything including the asexual nature of Freud's cigars. This article does not serve proper English usage and should be deleted. 216.197.221.61 (talk) 15:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually "Russia herself" (61,900 times) is an overestimate, e.g., it contains constructs like "Russia, herself" for example "Russia herself" -Clinton is only cited 58,300 times in Google where the sycophantic press coverage of "Clinton blames...Russia, [sic, and] herself" some 3,300 times is removed. Overall, references to "Russia herself" where "herself" actually refers to Russia are about 10 time less frequent than "Russia itself." 216.197.221.61 (talk) 16:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)