BOOKMARKS rt.com/Politics/2008-03-02/Medvedev_laughs_
at_himself.html Mr Medvedev shares the joke at KVN
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes Joke info
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humor.rin.ru Russian jokes and anecdotes DISTRIBUTED WITH THE DAILY TELEGRAPH TUESDAY_DECEMBER 22_2009 Reflections
Comedy KVN was the TV outlet for anti-Soviet
thoughts, subversive but funny enough to survive
The day that Vladimir
Putin laughed
Dmitry Medvedev’s rise to the says “What’s up, Dima?” When the player who made the smart-
presidency was unexpected. As they pose for a class photo, the est joke. The key to the show be-
it became public that Russia’s unknowing hero gives the fu- came improvisation, jokes and
deputy prime minister would be ture president bunny ears. Tell put-ons, as well as uncontrolla-
likely successor to Vladimir this story to any Russian, and ble laughter.
Putin, a team from Moscow he’ll respond, “Only on KVN.” Its first incarnation began in
State University performed a TV The abbreviation KVN is as 1956. Like a bolt from the blue
skit as Medvedev himself roared recognisable a Soviet brand as at the Twentieth Congress of the
with laughter in the front row. the Bolshoi Ballet or Yuri Communist Party, Khrushchev
Gagarin’s smile. When it debut- delivered his secret speech de- VADIM ZHUKOV_ITAR-TASS
EVGENY TIPIKIN
ed on national television in the nouncing Stalin. His unmask- In the Seventies, copy-cat KVN shows were put on at universities, factories, schools and summer camps
RUSSIA NOW Sixties, KVN, or Klub Vesy- ing of the personality cult was
olykh i Nakhodchivykh (The like a breath of fresh air – and
The students portrayed Mr Club of the Merry and Quick- freedom. The following year members of the audience. stampeded by hundreds of peo- More recently, the game has
Medvedev’s fi ctional school re- Witted), was the only legal form Moscow hosted the World Youth Filmed live, they took part in ple in fur coats and felt boots. been played in Western Europe,
union. His former classmates of unorthodox thought. This Festival. The Soviet intelligent- various contests. The show They surged past the police and Israel and the United States.
fawned over the president-to- humorous survivor from Soviet sia was full of hope, creative helped demonstrate that, after chaos ensued. The show was The fi rst international compe-
be, asking if he remembered civilisation is a unique creation, projects and brilliant ideas. decades of being stifl ed in the pulled, but nothing was put in tition – between the former So-
them and laughing uproarious- not borrowed from the West. It was then, during the so-called name of Party and State, every its place. All evening, televi- viet Union and Israel – was held
ly at his lame jokes. A clueless Games and skits between teams “Thaw,” that producers came person could be interesting on sions tuned to VVV showed the in Moscow in 1992. A world
former classmate arrives, boast- of college students are played up with the idea of “enlivening” his own and, more signifi cantly, message: championship between teams
ing: “I’ve been in the woods for out in front of a live studio au- television, still totally control- have his own opinion. This was INTERRUPTED FOR TECH- from the States, Israel and the
the past five years – no TV, no dience. At first it consisted of led by the ruling regime. a fantastic breakthrough, a rev- NICAL REASONS. former Soviet Union took place
radio… nothing!” Oblivious to competitions involving general The message was completely olution of sorts. This technical interruption in Israel in 1994.
Medvedev’s fame, the guy erudition, but it evolved into new for Soviet TV: participants In the beginning the show was lasted four years until KVN In one skit, following several
smacks him on the back and contests of wits that favoured included not only the hosts, but not KVN, but VVV – or Vecher rose from dead air in 1961. It bank defaults and economic
Vesyolykh Voprosov (An was originally fi lmed in black- crises, a KVN team from the
Evening of Merry Questions). and-white and grew fantasti- city of Tula offered the follow-
The joke’s on us
Napoleon, “then we wouldn’t After only its third show, VVV cally popular overnight, even- ing domain name to Russia’s
have allowed Hitler to cross our was taken off air by the author- tually becoming the longest- largest state bank, Sberbank:
threshold.” ities in the wake of an “inci- running show on both Soviet www.deneg.net. In Russian,
In the Sixties, a man ran naked ken.” (Breathes into the tube “And if I had newspapers like dent.” VVV had decided to and Russian TV. “deneg net” reads “no money.”
through the streets of Moscow himself.) “No, it’s working!” your Pravda,” says Napoleon, award a prize at the next taping KVN soon became a social In the old days, KVN acted as a
yelling: “Khruschev is an idiot! “not a soul would have heard to any audience member who movement. Copy-cat safety valve through which the
Khruschev is an idiot!” The man Two Muscovites meet. about Waterloo.” arrived at the studio dressed in “KVNchiks” were put on at uni- steam of social tension was re-
was given 101 years in the Gu- “How’s life?” a fur coat, hat and felt boots (it versities, factories, schools and leased by the power of laughter.
lag: one year for public inde- “Fantastic.” When Nasa started sending up was then the middle of summer) pioneer camps. KVN went The media atmosphere in Rus-
cency, 100 for releasing state “Do you read the papers?” astronauts, they discovered and carrying a newspaper around the country auditioning sia has since changed, and KVN
secrets. “Of course! How else would I that ballpoint pens wouldn’t dated December 31 of the pre- teams, the best of which wound has become one of many com-
know?” work in zero gravity. Scientists vious year. Unfortunately, when up on television. edy sketch shows.
Traffic police stop a car. spent a decade and $12m de- the show’s host (famous com- Since teams often made ironic Prime minister Vladimir Putin
Policeman: “Have you drunk Brezhnev and Napoleon meet in veloping a pen that writes in poser Nikita Bogoslovsky) an- remarks about Soviet reality even appeared on the show sev-
vodka today?” the next world. space, upside down, underwa- nounced the conditions, he for- and ideology (those were the eral years ago to celebrate its
Driver: “No.” “Oh-h-h, if only we’d had such ter, on almost any surface and got to mention the newspaper. jokes the audience liked best), 45th anniversary: it is still one
Policeman: “Breathe into the a brilliant commander as your- at temperatures ranging from Naturally, almost everyone the show was soon no longer of the few places – perhaps the
tube... Well, no alcohol is de- self in the Soviet Union instead below freezing to 300C. The owned winter clothing, and, live, but taped. Ideologically only one – that the former pres-
tected... Maybe the tube is bro- of Stalin,” Brezhnev says to Russians used a pencil. when the show was scheduled dubious humour was often ed- ident has laughed at an impres-
to start taping, the studio was ited out. sion of himself.
-
Opinion
rarely smile, much less laugh. I’ve found that though.) The same guy who sits frowning in the cit of irony. I suspect that the US leads the world
much of this image is easy to dispel as an out- Moscow subway is most likely an irrepressible in serious scandals derived from overheard
Smiles behind the
dated Cold War stereotype. (Granted, Moscow wag when you get him alone for a drink. jokes. Or perhaps the problem is that Americans
has long winters. And Russians do drink a lot of Anyone who has anything to do with Russia has try so hard both to be happy, and not to hurt
poker faces
vodka. In shots. But on the issue of clothes, at encountered the classic Soviet-era jokes that anyone’s feelings.
least…) Yet the idea of an innate Russian defi- are retold to the present day. For example, the Hurt, however, is often at the crux of humour, as
ciency in the humour department seems to stick. Red commander addressing his troops: Russians seem to know best. A Russian proverb
KEVIN MF PLATT Perhaps this is an effect of the one Russian “Men, the Whites have been defeated and the (loosely translated) runs: “Where a man feels
novel anyone may have read in school, the victory of the Revolution is secure. In the past, pain, that’s what he’ll explain.” Russian humour
SPECIAL TO
RUSSIA NOW
spectacularly unfunny Crime and Punishment. man exploited man. Now, it will be the other way is, most often, a self-deprecating and effective
(In partial defence of Dostoevsky, Nabokov around." weapon against iniquity, injustice and pain, of
described his novels as “wastelands of literary Indeed, Communism and its absurdities pro- which Russians have had extra helpings – es-
platitudes” punctuated by “flashes of excellent duced some of the best jokes of all. pecially in the last century or so. Which brings
humour”. Somehow, I missed the funny bits. The Will there be money under Communism? Yu- me to a last Russian joke.
FROM PERSONAL ARCHIVES
wastelands, too, actually.) goslavian revisionists say “Yes,” while Chinese A man is walking down the street with a spear
I first ran into the problem of explaining Russian The image problem is exacerbated by the Rus- dogmatics say “No.” We take a dialectic ap- through his chest. His friend runs up and says,
humour to Westerners while in graduate school. sian habit of maintaining a poker face in public proach: there will be, but not for everyone. “Wow! Does it hurt?”
When I told family and friends that my master’s and a tendency towards, let’s say, a brusque In my informal poll of those who know Russia, “Only when I laugh,” comes the reply.
thesis was about laughter in Russian literature, manner. The irony is that Russians actually have the most common characterisation of Russian
they would laugh at me. a great sense of humour. Being a specialist, I humour is “dark”. This response may say as Kevin MF Platt is associate professor of Slavic
Typically, in the Western imagination, Russians can write this in absolute, 100pc seriousness. (I much about Americans as Russians. Americans languages and literatures and graduate chair
are sombre people, who live in cold places, have just attended a Princeton University confer- love to laugh, but are extraordinarily careful of the comparative literature programme at the
dress in grey or brown, drink vodka in shots and ence on “Totalitarian Laughter”. No laughs there, about what they laugh about. Maybe it’s a defi- University of Pennsylvania
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