1. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 341.
2. Shafarevich 1989, 190.
3. Moskovskie novosti, no. 43, 27 October 1991, p. 2.
4. Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 33, 21 August 1991, p. 1.
5. Gel’man 1992, 24.
6. See especially Likhachev and Panchenko 1976, and the discussion of Fools in Christ herein, 21–22.
7. As in Nikolai Zlatovratskii’s narodnik novel Foundations (1951 [1878–83], 24).
8. Items 1204, 1240, 1244, 1681, 1685, 1716 in Barag et al. 1979.
9. Dal’ 1984, vol. 1, 343; Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905, 22.
10. Dal’ 1984, vol. 1, 342.
11. Ibid., 339, 343.
12. Merezhkovskii 1914, vol. 15, 173.
13. See, for example: Leroy-Beaulieu 1902–5, vol. 2, 278ff., 384ff.; Eklof 1991; Worobec 1991, 211–13; Kolchin 1987, 71–77, 120–26, 304; Belliustin 1985 (1858), 73; Hoch 1986, 160–86; Evreinov 1979 (1913?). For a plethora of proverbs on corporal punishment, see Illiustrov 1904, 327ff. There is an exceptionally large entry in Dahl’s dictionary under the verb “bit”’ (“to beat,” vol. 1, 88–90). See also the discussion of birch rods herein, 184. There are indications that corporal punishment of children is still common in Russia (Gamaiunov 1992).
Flogging was very common during the period of serfdom. For example, Hoch calculates that for the period 1826–28 in the village of Petrovskoe in Tambov province, there was a mean of 0.27 floggings per adult worker per year; based on thirteen years of complete data for the mid-nineteenth century in Petrovskoe, “roughly one-quarter of all adult male serfs were disciplined at least once during the course of a year” (Hoch 1986, 162–63).
14. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 347, 348.
15. Example provided by Yuri Druzhnikov. Cf. English: “It takes one to know one” (thanks to Catherine Chvany for this example).
16. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 348.
17. Okudzhava 1982, 95.
18. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 346; Carey 1972, 47.
19. For a good overall description (as opposed to a scholarly analysis) of the figure of Ivan the Fool, see Siniavskii 1991, 34ff.
20. Siniavskii 1991, 34.
21. Meletinskii 1958, 227.
22. Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905.
23. A positive outcome is naturally gratifying to the listener. The nature of this gratification has been ably psychoanalyzed by Bruno Bettelheim in his essay on “The Youngest Child as Simpleton” (1977, 102–11).
24. To phrase this more in terms of Freud’s key essay on “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious” (SE, vol. 8), we may say: psychical energy or cathexis previously required to repress both sadistic impulses (against objects in the outside world) and masochistic fantasies (especially self-humiliation) is freed up by the figure of the fool, finding momentary outlet in the physiological outburst known as laughter. The behavior of Ivan the fool thus sets off psychological processes which resemble those occurring in what Freud called the “tendentious joke.”
25. Cf. Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905, 15.
26. Not all Ivans are fools, of course. There are other, different kinds of Ivans in Russian folklore: Ivan the tsar’s son, Ivan the Bear’s ear, Ivan the son of a bitch, Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the son of a mare, Ivan the cow’s son, etc. Another way to put this is to say that masochism is only one aspect of Russian national character.
An interesting variation on foolish Ivan’s name is the name Ibanov, invented by the anti-Soviet satirist Aleksandr Zinoviev, author of The Yawning Heights (Zinov’ev 1976). All characters in this novel are named Ibanov. They are a bunch of sad sack intellectuals living in the allegorical land of Ibansk (from “ebat’” [“fuck”] and “Ivan”), admirably translated by Edward J. Brown (1982, 381) as “Fuckupia.” All the masochists of Ibansk are, as it were, fucked up. The numerous obscenities in the novel justify this characterization.
27. Semenova-Tian-Shanskaia 1914.
28. Gor’kii 1937, 154–63.
29. Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905, 44.
30. Likhachev 1987, vol. 2, 425–30.
31. Meletinskij 1975, 242; cf. also Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905.
32. Likhachev 1987, vol. 2, 428–29.
33. Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905, 57.
34. Hubbs 1988, 147.
35. See Barag et al. 1979, item 1677.
36. Shergin 1990.
37. Rancour-Laferriere 1985, 200ff.
38. Cf. Rank 1973 (1929), 112. I wish to thank my student Ellen Crecelius for bringing this reference to my attention.
39. Meletinskii 1958, 223.
40. “Pech’ nam mat’ rodnaia.” See Dal’ 1955 (1880–82), vol. 3, 108. Sometimes the term “pechka-matushka” is used (Eremina 1991, 158; cf. Hubbs 1988, 58). Freud listed the stove and oven as dream-symbols for the uterus (SE, vol. 15, 156, 162). Without mentioning Freud, Toporkov has recently demonstrated the uterine significance of the stove into which a sick child was supposed to be inserted for “re-baking” (“perepekanie”) in some East Slavic areas (1992, 115). See also Baiburin 1993 (53–54) on this topic.
41. There is an anal sub-motif within the category of Russian foolishness. We have, for example, the classic Russian self-deprecation: “The Russian is strong on hindsight,” or more literally, “is strong by means of the rear brain” (“Russkii chelovek zadnim umom krepok”). A Russian who is behaving foolishly may be characterized as “thinking with the ass” (“dumat’ zhopoi”). The medieval Russian “world of laughter” (Likhachev) also sometimes featured a rear end covered with ash or feces.
42. See Hubbs 1988, 146–47 on the fool’s dependency on his mother; Meletinskij 1975, 238–39 (= Meletinskii 1958, 224ff.) on his overall passivity.
43. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 345, 340. The root morpheme -rod- is remarkably common among the proverbs about fools.
44. Smirnov-Kutachevskii 1905, 22.
45. Dal’ 1984 (1862), vol. 1, 341.
46. Ibid., 339.
47. Ibid., 340.
48. The closest thing to an exception is the subgenre of obscene tales narrated by men, the so-called “zavetnye skazki.” Here hostility toward women is frequently expressed by the representation of women as “stupid” regarding sexual matters. For example: a young woman thinks that it is a piglet that a man is putting under her dress (when in fact it is his penis); a girl believes that penises are detachable; a son shows his father that he can get a return on his investment by making a “horny noblewoman” pay for sex with him; etc. (see Afanas’ev 1975 [1872]). It should be noted that the misogynistic sentiments of these tales are often coupled with intense castration anxiety.
49. Cf. Meletinskii 1958, 239.
50. Afanas’ev 1984–85, vol. 3, 117. See also the Andreev (1929) motif-index, no. 1685, and Barag et al. 1979 (same no.).
51. Afanas’ev 1984–85, vol. 3, 116, 117. Cf. Meletinskij 1975, 247. There are numerous psychological variants on this theme where the hero gains riches not directly by means of his mother’s dead body, but by destroying objects (a birch tree, a stump, etc.) which turn out to have money inside them, or underneath them. These objects would appear to be substitutes for the maternal body.
52. Zelenin 1991 (1914), 60.
53. Only very rarely does the fool’s closeness to the mother have any sexual overtones, e.g.: “Such a fool is the ram: before the feast of Saint Peter he sucks his mother, then after the feast of Saint Peter he fucks her” (“Durak-to baran: do Petrova-dnia matku soset, a posle Petrova-dnia matku ebet”) (Carey 1972, 47). The rarity of references to the fool’s sexual interaction with the mother (even in the openly obscene lore) is testimony to the essentially pre-Oedipal nature of his relationship with her.