Talk:Russian political jokes

U vas maysa netu?
A joke deleted; translation problem.
 * A man walks into a store: "You don't have any meat, do you?" / "No, we don't have any fish. The store next door is the one that doesn't have any meat."

This joke is totally confusing to non-Russians. The russian grammar of a question "U vas net myasa?", with the stress on the word "net", actually means exactly opposite: "Do you have any meat?" I.e., it is an affirmative-type question. "You don't have any meat, do you?" translates as, like, "U vas net myasa, ne pravda li?" I.e., the question requests confirmation of a negative statement.

The versions "Don't you have any meat?" or "You do have some meat, don't you?" will not go. Any other suggestions about affirmtive questions that contain negation (so that the pun may be rendered without boring explanations)?

By the way, the way at is stands, the joke may cause only a mild shrug: "this shop doesn't have fish, another one doesn'r have meat; what's the problem, may be the first shop has meat and the second one has fish after all?" The punch of the joke is that the first shop is a fish shop. It does not have any fish, but it is perfectly comfortable in terms of meat: it does not have to say: "No, we don't have any meat"; it is the meat shop that does not have any meat: "so piss off, go bug them instead of us", rather than "No we dont have any meat; would you like some fresh fish instead?" `'mikka (t) 00:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There is an equivalent English joke... A man goes into a restaurant and orders apple pie, and asks for no cream. "Sorry," says the waiter, "we are out of cream. You'll have to have it without custard". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.226.97 (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Praise
This page is great. Brutannica 06:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

as far as I know (and I know), the photo of meat shop is made in Poland, is of Polish meat shop, and it's quite famous here in Poland. how about short note about it? or remove it, i think. cheers.

WP Is not a jokebook
I have been bold and removed much of the jokes and superflous information. What I have left is commentary on the jokes and their impact on society. I believe that much of what is there now is original research, because there are no sources listed to go on. I will probably be reverted, but I wished to explain myself.

The Hammer & Tickle article at least proves notability, provided that the website is credible (I cannot tell). I assume that most of the discussion on the jokes in this article came from there. If not, it should be removed. I hope to get around to reading that novel of an article, so I can verify what is said here. The links to Amazon.com do not help anything, because you aren't actually citing the book. The book itself needs to be cited. If the books there have information on the jokes themselves, not just a list of them, then that should really be included. I do not own any copies of the books, so I can't. I'll try to do a bit more research.

All in all, there is much that can and should be done to this page. However, it should not be a jokebook. I have left a few examples on ones that I thought illustrated some of the points discussed in the analysis. Feel free to change the examples, but do not restore this page as a jokebook. i said 05:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As you rightfully guessed, your massive deletion was reverted. There were a number of major joke topics, which were illustrated by 1-2 jokes, so it is hardly a jokebook. Please feel free to add text to the article; sources abound. `'Míkka 16:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There were topics, but each example need not have an accompanying joke. i said 18:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Disagreed. The article needs not deletion of jokes but addition of critical text. Then it will become well-balanced. Of course, to hit "del" key is much easier... `'Míkka 19:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It is. There is nothing to justify this amount of jokes. It does need addition of critical context, but adding it will not justify 44 jokes in one article. i said 19:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Opinion disagreed. Examples and quotations are justified in virtually all topics. Number irrelevant,  as long as they are for different topics. `'Míkka 19:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We are obviously not going to go anywhere with this conversation. What do we do next. i said 19:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Write wikipedia. `'Míkka 19:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I try to improve it, which includes getting rid of these jokes. I mean which of the many fora do we go to next. i said 19:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Obviosly you are foreign to Russian culture. Nearly all of the jokes quoted in the article have been running jokes in Russian culture and created cliches in Russian language. In otyher words, they are notable. May I humbly suggest you to edit things you really know? For example, I am not messing with huge numbers of pokemon and porn star articles I would gladly see deletd. `'Míkka 19:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Show me sources that indicate these specific jokes are notable. I am not restricted to only things I know about. If that happened, then this would be cruft a pedia. These individual jokes, however important they may be to Russian culture (which, individually I do not believe) do not need to be listed here. Russian political jokes as a concept are notable, and deserve an article. If you wish to make a jokebook, go to Wikibooks. Except that Jimbo deleted it. Do not list jokes here. i said 19:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Nobody "lists" jokes here. Just the opposite: last two years I am deleting them. Good bye. `'Míkka 19:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine. Excuse my wording. This article gives very breif descriptions about a class of joke, (and sometimes doesn't) and then gives around three examples. We do not need that. We need discussion about Russian jokes as a part of their society, and a few examples that strongly illustrate some points. Not every single one. (ec) Goodbye? What do you mean? i said 20:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The article is quite interesting ... and amusing. It is not perfectly neutral; it leaves much to be explained in places - but deletions are not the answer.  Please, focus on constructive changes. 70.15.116.59 15:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic Page Shame about the POV
a good page on soviet humour, and communist humour in general, as a british communist who has travelled to cuba and to other communists areas i am well versed in them myself. The only problem with the page is that it has a strong point of view, and i aint talking about the jokes which can be as critical as they want, however the bosh surrounding it such as (Note: Money is supposed to be abolished in communist society) which is an absoutley absurdly biased statement since socialism is meant to be a process and no one said anything about any utopian principles like that in any serious socialist litreature. Along with the general slagging off of communism u find above and under every joke which fairly enough might come from the very anti communist essay which talks about soviet jokes that this article is seemingly entirley based on. Im going to make a big edit and if anyone wants to reverse it just slap a non neutrel thing on the top though its a bit silly we have to do this on a jokes article unfortunatley this is an encylopedia and u cant have that sorta bias here. f4i —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 21:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's discuss one step at a time. These are political jokes. Political jokes poke fun at politics. Politics in the Soviet Union was Communist Party and Soviets. Hence jokes poke fun at communism and Soviet power. Therefore I fail to see why you think the article is biased ("anti-communist"). Since you say you are communist, please keep in mind to avoid confusion between the ideals of communism/socialism and the impliementation of these ideas in the Soviet Union. `'Míkka 22:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

well im not trying to say all the jokes should go, understand that at least. im fine with "anti-soviet" jokes who doesnt tell jokes about there countries government. However its little things like(Note: Money is supposed to be abolished in communist society) and saying the soviet union wanted a utopian classless society, i meen the first one is just wrong and the second one is a bit biased since communism is based on scientific socialism and saying utpoian shows an obvious bias. Another main point of obvious bias is the using of the soviet enemy of the people thing in the constituion to call telling jokes and extreme sport, when it came down to it living in the soviet union was pretty normal and lines lines like that all add to this big weird idea that it was in someway an evil place to live. Apart from that really the article is just generally when u read it though anti communist. Also the soviet union was socialist no matter what people say, might not have been perfect but it was a socialist economy broadly following the ideads of marxist lennenism. Though that is not a discussion here and can be done another place (+ im new to this wikipedia editing and would never check this page enough and internet debating is useless unless everyones checking it every day) f4i 10:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Many of the jokes exist in other forms and other countries, specially those in the classic form of "three guys walk into a bar...": one does something mild, the other one something a little more extreme and the third one delivers the punchline; come on now, thats western humour!, i highly doubt any of these jokes are really from Russian itself, but about Russia.201.215.161.72 (talk) 12:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

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I lol'd
I came to this article because I overheard a Russian acquaintance saying to someone that Americans didn't find Russian humor funny. Very educational! Keep up the good work. Some of the translations are a little stilted and could be improved. I'd do that, but I don't want to inadvertently destroy the comedy. The critical text there is is good, but we can certainly use more. 164.107.191.89 (talk) 18:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger with Russian jokes
I would like to suggest a merger of this whole article back into Russian jokes and deletion of the old page. Here are some reasons why (let's open up a decent discussion):

1) There are no other pages in Wikipedia so largely describing one nation's humour. The reason is because more than 75% of the page's content consists of jokes themselves being written in different variants. These jokes are available elsewhere all over the web, and can even be put to Wikiquote. They have nothing to do on this page, even as examples.

2) This article harms the overall comprehension of all readers. It does not explain, in a clear and comprehensive way, the nature of humour in Russian jokes, instead basing all attention to the jokes themselves. Users come here to laugh instead of getting informed.

3) This article is a "filthy image whore". Yes, you heard me. There is no need to have an image of every left dictator on the same page as the text talk about them. It's just too much. And without those images, all the info could simply be put back into Russian jokes and dealt with.

Other suggestions? I'm open. Thank you, Shadiac (talk) 18:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Other suggestion is to improve both articles. I myself added 2-3 references from english language seurces. If insted of grumbling of how longa and bad it is, everyone does the same, the articles will be featured. Also, I don't see why laughing prevents from being informed. Also I dont see why images prevent from being informed. Images of dictators render the atmosphere in the state very well. By the way, from what Ive heard, only Stalin was really dictator. Khrushchev was laugh and Brezhnev was senile puppet. Mukadderat (talk) 01:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Beside the fact of semi-protecting the page from what you consider as "unsourced vandalism", I don't really see any progress here in a past couple of months. There is still a lot of erroneous info on the page and the article is getting nowhere. Between this and a really featured article lies a gap as large as the Atlantic. I'm sorry, 142.213.176.78 (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticizm from Russia
I was born in Russia (i.e. in USSR), I am living in Russia and I am 50 years old, so I do know the subject of this article inside. This is extremelly poor article, and so I agree that it should be deleted as soon as possible. As was noted already on this page:

1)Zero references! There are no original sources in Russian - compare with | anecdote from Russian Wiki! It is very important point, because it is impossible to translate the majority of the jokes from Russian into other languages. The attempts to translate some jokes into English look like original research and so these translations can not be reproduced in Wiki before publishing in reliable sources WP:NOR.

2)Non-specific jokes: There are many equivalent English jokes, so it is not original Russian invention. Also, many people in USSR were poor informed about problems in other countries, so they were sure that some of common problems were specific Soviet problems. This point should be noted for NPOV.

3)It is not encyclopedic article and "WP is not a jokebook". Thre is no analysis of the phenomenon. See, noted article (and references) in Russian Wiki to compare. Also, do you know that there were many jokes with positive point of view in USSR and in xUSSR also? But I found only negative point of view in this article. It seems that some authors of the article dislike Russia and so this looks like "anti-Russian jokes" page (Not NPOV, again!).

4)Some jokes were based on Racism, such jokes distribution would be a scandal for many countries. But jokes of this type are not noted in the article. So, a reader may think that Russian political jokes were progressive only. Also, the majority of Russian jokes uses Russian mat and the estimation of such jokes and their distribution are non-trivial problems. In a few words Russian jokes (all jokes, not only political) are not simple phenomenon, and the article is very incomplete. There are many serious researches of this phenomenon were published in Russia today. And these books should be used in the article Russian jokes. So, this is a nonsense to support this page separately.--Tim32 (talk) 17:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I was born in Russia, too! I am still living in Russia and I enjoy political jokes! In seems to me that this article is quite good! --EsfirK (talk) 18:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "progressive jokes"? )) you are pathetic213.80.170.74 (talk) 13:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Question
During Soviet times, did they tell any jokes that were actually funny? Sca (talk) 19:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess they were funny for them. Some things are really funny only if you live through it. See, e.g., Insider joke. NOt to say tastes differ. Twri (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the people who told really funny ones got the death sentence. ;-) Sullivan.t.j (talk) 23:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Gallows humor, you know... - Altenmann >t 00:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This whole article might be a joke
I started to check references for the jokes but there are no links which we could check to know if these jokes really had its place in the Soviet Union. Maybe we should delete this article until someone could give us any reference? Let me do it. How do I delete it? Ogomemnon (talk) 08:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

In Soviet Russia,
wiki edits you!

Why is there no mention of "In Soviet Russia" jokes on this page? Jokes of this kind are a significant meme. From a quick scan of this article, I could not find any jokes I consider something that the general American public would know. "In Soviet Russia" jokes are, on the other hand, mainstream and prolific.

Are "In Soviet Russia" jokes not appropriate for this article (for some reason)? If there is no reason not to include them, maybe I will add to this article.WIERDGREENMAN, Thane of Cawdor THE CAKE IS A LIE (talk) 03:50, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Because these jokes are not Russian folklore. They have an originator (and copycats) and their own article. There are quite a few Russian comedians and humor writers (Ilf and Petrov, Arkady Raikin, Mikhail Zadornov, KVN, ....), and their jokes are not discussed here either. - Altenmann >t 15:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Sevenassov joke
Is this really Russian joke? There's a pun about english word "ass", what's this to do with Russian? 94.41.202.7 (talk) 17:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Russian joke: Semizhopov ( Семижопов) = Seven+assholes. — Alexey Tourbaevsky, chelo Vechek /  talk  22:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Need references for a line
This one specifically: "Every nation enjoys political jokes, but in the Soviet Union telling political jokes could be regarded as type of extreme sport: according to Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), "anti-Soviet propaganda" was a potentially capital offense.". Is there any source to the claim besides the law? Wikipedia shouldn't write in the conditional; either someone was prosecuted for telling a political joke, or they weren't. I also find the claim that political jokes "could" be regarded as an extreme sport dubious. It's not exactly the actual definition of an extreme sport. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.162.113.64 (talk) 10:31, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh yes, people were arrested for telling them. Zezen (talk) 23:44, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Fridge vs. TV into Russian political jokes
Fridge vs. TV is a stub, and it doesn't seem like there's enough possible growth there to justify it being a separate page from this one. The content should be rewritten to address the hat and merged here. Apocheir (talk) 23:19, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Reference Work List of links
Shilikhina, K. (2013). Canned jokes in Russian public political discourse. The European Journal of Humour Research, 1(2), 84–100. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2013.1.2.shilikhina
 * Cult of Putin
 * Return of Dark Humour
 * Folkore
 * BBC
 * Humour is a Tiny revolution
 * A general theory of jokes whose butts are the stupid and the canny
 * CASE STUDY: LATE-NIGHT SHOWS ON PERVIY KANAL AND DISCREDITATION OF WESTERN POLITICAL LEADERS
 * Davies, C. (2007). Humour and Protest: Jokes under Communism. International Review of Social History, 52(S15), 291-305. doi:10.1017/S0020859007003252

Background on RFC on edits reverted by Steinbach
<@Steinbach's revert stated "No, we don't need your stupid pro-Putin propaganda, least of all here!"

DIff

My offer to WP:Negotiate took place on User talk:Steinbach. They have refused further negotiation, Wakelamp d&#91;@-@&#93;b (talk) 14:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

RfC about Edits being Pro-Putin
Should the revert of references.pic, and reword stay. (Discussion on user talk links on Talk:Russian_political_jokes) Wakelamp d&#91;@-@&#93;b (talk) 05:13, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * What is the question you are trying to ask? This prompt is pure nonsense. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 06:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is my first time doing a revert rfc, so would appreciate if you could advise a better reword.
 * Based question on <@Steinbach's revert stated "No, we don't need your stupid pro-Putin propaganda, least of all here!"
 * Diff
 * WP:Negotiate took place on User talk:Steinbach "If you keep on putting your propaganda back, I will take the matter to the village pump." Have done no edit or reverts, Wakelamp d&#91;@-@&#93;b (talk) 07:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree this request does not satisfy the requirements of an RfC. Zakaria ښه راغلاست (talk) 16:31, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @LaundryPizza03 @Zakaria1978 As I said my first RfC in 13 years editing, The citations are good, and there are talk comments going asking for citations since 2008. So, what do i do next? Wakelamp d&#91;@-@&#93;b (talk) 12:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Restore If this is about Special:Diff/1112720028, this is definitely a bad revert because it removed reliable sources, and there was no obvious "pro-Putin propaganda". Although, the revised bullet point on Ben Lewis (Canadian actor) was less clear than the status quo.  I would reword the RfC as: Should this revert be undone? –LaundryPizza03 ( d  c̄ ) 16:52, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with, Special:Diff/1112720028 should be reverted. The jokes comparing Putin and Stalin are referenced and are hardly pro-Putin propaganda. Alaexis¿question? 08:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)