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ՕN THE POST-SOVIET “OTHERNESS”:

“KHACHS” and “KHACHICS” IN THE RUSSIAN POPULAR DISCOURSE.

1. The dissolution of the USSR creates new realities, new identities, and attitudes. However, at usually happens, for the nomination of the new phenomena, the old names have been transformed and now are used in quite other meaning. The ways of the semiotic transformations of the lexical items can be used as a tool for elucidation of the social and cultural radical changes. On the other hand, these changes are the constitutive element for semantic neologisms. This is the matter when linguistic semantic should be complemented by the methods of social linguistics and cultural anthropology. We try to demonstrate how the most burning social issues ( xenophobia, migration, extremism) are reflected in the history of the coinage of the new “Russian” (originally = Armenian) words - “KHACHS” and “KHACHICS."

2. The borrowed from the Armenian language names “KHACHS” and “KHACHICS” now are very popular in the Russian folk discourse – these are the most derogatory names for the migrants from the Caucasus and, most recently, for all the non-Slavonic migrants from the former USSR. “Kick ( or Kill) Khaches, Save Russia” has become one of the main slogans of the radical Russian nationalists, it can be frequently seen in Internet and suburban graffiti. The ugly wild faces of the “Khaches” are pictured on the various sites. Giving apart the political and legal aspects of this situation, let’s concentrate on its semantic history – this is a transformation of the “otherness”: the inversion from “the other as a friend” into “the other as an inner enemy”. Tհis supra-ethnic slur was coined after dissolution of the USSR, its semantic history can reveal the significant social changes and their linguistic and cultural representations.

3. “The people friendship” was one of the key notions of the Soviet ideology. This was a form of reconciliation between the socialist “sameness” and ethnic and cultural "otherness." Such a duality was deeply entrenched in all the types of the Soviet political system and public and cultural life: from the formally dual citizenship (belonging to USSR and at the same time to the Soviet republic ) till ideology and art ( socialist by the essence, national by the form).

4. This idea was reproduced by different ways, first of all – through the cinematography. One of the constant motives of the most popular movies was the meeting between Caucasian village man with his Russian counterparts. The one of the top film of the Stalinist epoch, Swine-herd and Stableman ( Svinarka i Pastukh, the English version: They met in Moscow, 1944) was about a great love between two true Soviet compatriots - the handsome and generous but naïve and non-illuminated Caucasian shepherd and his Russian swine-herd girlfriend from the village of Vologda. This movie had formed the general template of such interaction: the Soviet agricultural version of the pastoral genre, something like of reincarnation of the Rousseauistic controversy between Nature and Culture in the Soviet Kolkhoz (Collective farm).

5. The last prominent movie about adventures of Caucasians in Moscow was the “Mimino” (1978), it has become one of the most popular film even till now. There were made some serious transformations from the official traditional pattern. Moscow is not hostile, but however alien city for two provincials, the Armenian truck driver and Georgian helicopter pilot. The characters have escaped from many gaps and traps of the huge mega-polis and finally came back to their countryside life. In some respect, the primitive, but amicable, and frank mother nature sons are opposed to Russians, who are more educated and illuminated but in some compliance far from the true human values. This dilemma is reproduced also as a contrast between two Khachikyans – the main character, Khacikyan the driver ( played by the typical Armenian actor), and Khachikyan ( played by the typical Russian actor), the world-known professor who is successfully integrated into Moscow elite life and who was ashamed for behavior of his provincial compatriot.

6. The numerous monuments of the main characters of “Mimino” were erected recently in Moscow. Tbilisi, Telavi, Dilijan, etc. – now they are recognized as nostalgic symbols of the lasting epoch. The evergreen popularity of this movie and its characters was overlapped with the frequency of the Armenian name Khachatur (given by Cross) and its diminutive form Khachik. So in Armenian, we have a derivation from Khach (CROSS) to Khachikyan: In Armenian, there is a derivation from Khachatur ( given by Cross) –> Khachik ( diminutive from Khachatur ) –> Khachikyan ( family name from Khachik’s son).

The derivation In Russian seems to be a symmetric mirror reflexion ( inversion) in comparison with the Armenian pattern: Khachikian (the typical Armenian from movie) -> Khachik ( name of Armenian) -> Khachik ( pejorative nick-name for Armenians, then – for Caucasians, then – for all the “blacks”) -> Khachs ( all the blacks from the North Caucasus and former Soviet Union )

6. Khachiks and Khachs belong to the same class of miserable, but they differ in gradation. By the popular concepts, Khachiks are contemptible, but however tolerated and even exploited: they belong to the lowest class of the society and provide the cheapest rate services, usually illegal ( cf.: kchach-auto, - cheapest taxi, kchach-mojka – car-washing, etc. ), sometimes they can be used as partners by lonely old Russian women. The Khachs are another matter, and they come to kill and destroy Russians, so they should be exterminated or, at least, expelled. As they portrayed on the Internet, they are very dangerous, brutal, without any intellectual virtues and moral constraints. At the same time, they are coward liars. They used to have sex with asses and sheep, but at the same time, they corrupt Russian girls. They can live in awful conditions like animals - in spite that they are actually very rich as they have stolen billions from Russians. However, sometimes, these two types are equated as the same evil.

7. Having in mind all the differences between Soviet and Post-Soviet images of kind, though a little primitive Stableman, then amicable and cordial countryman Khachikyan into the monstrous Khach, this transformation can be described as an inversion of the same semantic structure of myth – in accordance with the classical Levi-Straussian formula: Khachikyan vs. Khachik = Khachik vs. Khach.

The Other as a Naïve mother nature son, the kind-hearted savage man is perverted into a Humanoid Monster, the amicable friend has become an enemy, his openness - stupidity, his native intellect - cowardice and craftiness. Swineherd, stableman, and shepherd are perverted converted into animals. At the same time, it remains relevant the affiliation to the same political space: Khaches have been coming from the former Soviet Union, including parts of Russia ( North Caucasus, Tatarstan, etc.). The former compatriots now have appeared as a domestic enemy (as opposed to external enemies, Pindoses - Americans). In contrast to the Soviet paradigm, the cultural and ethnic differences are more important than the political and civic equivalence: the intimate Other is transformed into an alien inner enemy. As far as this semantic story can be condensed by the Levi-Straussian formula of the inversion of the essential semantic features and functions, so it would be possible to consider it not only as about the coinage of the new ethnic slur but also as a new mythological pattern.

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