Poshlost

It has been defined as "petty evil or self-satisfied vulgarity",{{Sfn | Alexandrov | 1991 | p = 106}} while Svetlana Boym{{Sfn | Boym | 2001 | p = 279}} defines it briefly as "obscenity and bad taste".

Boym goes on to describe it at more length:{{Sfn | Boym | 1994 | p = 41}}

{{blockquote |{{Transliteration|ru|Poshlost'}} is the Russian version of banality, with a characteristic national flavoring of metaphysics and high morality, and a peculiar conjunction of the sexual and the spiritual. This one word encompasses triviality, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, and a lack of spirituality. The war against {{Transliteration|ru|poshlost'}} was a cultural obsession of the Russian and Soviet intelligentsia from the 1860s to 1960s.}}

In his novels, Turgenev "tried to develop a heroic figure who could, with the verve and abandon of a Don Quixote, grapple with the problems of Russian society, who could once and for all overcome '{{Transliteration|ru|poshlost}}', the complacent mediocrity and moral degeneration of his environment".{{Sfn | Lindstrom | 1966 | p = 149}} Dostoyevsky applied the word to the Devil; Solzhenitsyn, to Western-influenced young people.{{Sfn | Boym | 1994 | page = 41}}

D. S. Mirsky was an early user of the word in English in writing about Gogol; he defined it as "'self-satisfied inferiority,' moral and spiritual".{{Sfn | Mirsky | 1927 | p = 158}} Vladimir Nabokov made it more widely known in his book on Gogol, where he romanized it as "{{Transliteration|ru|poshlust}}" (punningly: "posh" + "lust"). {{Transliteration|ru|Poshlust}}, Nabokov explained, "is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. A list of literary characters personifying {{Transliteration|ru|poshlust}} will include... Polonius and the royal pair in Hamlet, Rodolphe and Homais from Madame Bovary, Laevsky in Chekhov's 'The Duel', Joyce's Marion [Molly] Bloom, young Bloch in Search of Lost Time, Maupassant's 'Bel Ami', Anna Karenina's husband, and Berg in War and Peace".{{Sfn | Nabokov | 1944 | p = 70 | ps = . Brackets added.}} Nabokov also listed:{{sfn | Nabokov | 1973}}

{{blockquote |Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know.}}

Azar Nafisi mentions it and quotes the "falsely" definition in Reading Lolita in Tehran.{{Citation | newspaper = The Guardian | place = UK | url = http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1039915,00.html | title = Books | type = review}}.{{clarify|date=June 2024|reason=contentless sentence}}

Nabokov often targeted {{Transliteration|ru|poshlost}} in his own work; the Alexandrov definition above of "petty evil or self-satisfied vulgarity" refers to the character of M'sieur Pierre in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading.

Another literary treatment is Fyodor Sologub's novel The Petty Demon. It tells the story of a provincial schoolteacher, Peredonov, notable for his complete lack of redeeming human qualities. James H. Billington{{Sfn | Billington | 1966 | page = 494}} said of it:

{{blockquote|The book puts on display a Freudian treasure chest of perversions with subtlety and credibility. The name of the novel's hero, Peredonov, became a symbol of calculating concupiscence for an entire generation... [Peredonov] seeks not the ideal world but the world of petty venality and sensualism, {{Transliteration|ru|poshlost'}}. He torments his students, derives erotic satisfaction from watching them kneel to pray, and systematically befouls his apartment before leaving it as part of his generalized spite against the universe.}}

{{Reflist |64em}}

• {{cite book | last = Alexandrov | first = Vladimir | title = Nabokov's Otherworld | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 1991 | isbn = 0-691-06866-6 }}
• {{cite book | last = Billington | first = James H. | year = 1966 | title = The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture | url = https://archive.org/details/iconaxeinterpret00bill | url-access = registration | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf }}
• {{cite book |last = Boym | first = Svetlana | author-link=Svetlana Boym | year = 1994 | title = Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia | publisher = Harvard University Press | isbn = 0-674-14625-5 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=B7_uBFThxD4C&pg=PA48 | access-date = 2007-12-27 }}
• {{cite book | last = Boym | first = Svetlana | year = 2001 | title = The Future of Nostalgia | publisher = Basic Books | page = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780465007073/page/279 279] | isbn = 0-465-00707-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780465007073 | url-access = registration | access-date = 2012-11-26 | author-mask = 3 }}
• {{cite book | last = Davydov | first = Sergej | year = 1995 | title = The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov | chapter = Poshlost' | editor-first = V | editor-last = Alexandrov| publisher = Routledge | pages = 628–32 | isbn = 0-8153-0354-8 }}
• {{cite book| last = Lindstrom | first = Thais | title=A Concise History of Russian Literature. Volume I: From the Beginnings to Chekhov| location= New York | publisher= New York University Press | year = 1966 | lccn = 66-22218 }}
• {{cite book | last = Mirsky | first = D. S. | year = 1927 | title = A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900 | edition = 1999 | publisher = Northwestern University Press | isbn = 0-8101-1679-0 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Pys__ZDJN6QC&pg=PA158 | access-date = 2007-12-27 }}
• {{cite book | last = Nabokov | first = Vladimir | year = 1944 | title = Nikolai Gogol | publisher = New Directions | isbn = 9780811201209 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=GwfplQ3OK8EC&pg=PA70 | access-date = 2012-03-29 }}
• {{cite book | last = Nabokov | first = Vladimir | year = 1973 | title = Strong Opinions | publisher = McGraw-Hill | page = 100 | author-mask = 3 }} The original interview, with Herbert Gold in the October 1967 issue of the Paris Review, is [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov available on line], and an extract is available in a Time [https://web.archive.org/web/20080127072116/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,712044,00.html article] (Dec. 1, 1967) about the interview.
• {{cite book | last = Taruskin | first = Richard | title = On Russian Music | publisher = University of California Press | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-0-520-24979-0 }}

Category:Concepts in aesthetics

Category:Culture of Russia

Category:Russian words and phrases