Russian Obscenities. Berkley (Ru-En)

Throughout the history of Russia, with the exception of a brief period around the beginning of the present century, it has been the official policy of the government to forbid the appearance in print of a large body of words used in the everyday speech of many Russians and known to virtually all. These words are considered too obscene for inclusion in dictionaries, even through some of them have existed in the language from its beginnings (e.g. perdet’, Common slavic perdeti, c.f. Sanscrit pardati, English ‘fart’). Unfortunately, the compilers of most Russian reference works outside Russia have also deemed these words unsuitable for inclusion.

A Short Dictionary of Russian Obscenities is a modest attempt to fill this gap. It has been compiled from various lists which have circulated for some time but have not been available to a wide public, from Baudouin de Courtenay’s edition of Tolkovyi slovar’ zhivogo velikorusskogo jazyka by Vl. Dal’, and from material provided by several native informants.