Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Is HOL an example of online 'Kraevedenie' ?
I'm fond of collecting words from other languages that are hard to translate and express something that is absent or at least unnamed in English speaking cultures.
This week I came across a Russian word (a language I enjoy hearing, although I can't understand more than please and thank you) while reading my excellent library book on Russia (borrowed from Stroud Green and Harringay Library naturally) called Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky. As the author discussed Chekov in relation to his home city of Taganrog, I came upon a passage about a branch of scholarship that blossomed in Russia in the 1920s called kraevedenie which Polonsky defines as devotion to the knowledge of place in all its particularity - history, local lore and economy.
Gorky hailed kraevedenie as the encouragement of the 'growth of our sense of human dignity' and a modern kraeved, as the practitioner of this type of scholarship is known, calls it a form of 'local love, of spiritual work'.
The passage leapt out at me, perhaps as a way of defining what an online site could represent for a place. There is certainly history here, and lots of local lore. The local economy is constantly under the collective microscope. We promote a sense of place and with it we would hope to uphold the dignity of residents, especially in their relationship with authority. (As an aside, Stalin was not keen on the kraevedi and they were murderously purged in the 1930s by the authorities).
The Chekhovian sprit of his home town has a kraevedenie that is "at once modest and profound, grand in vision and attentive to the miniature, alert to the quirks of history and human personality, long-sighted and all-forgiving" according to Polonsky.
I'd certainly be happy to aim for that for Harringay and Harringay Online.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
Well yes, there's always a danger that people will seek to destroy what they can't control. Those same people often are resistant to those who assert their identities in the face of the 'official' message. But that won't happen here. I'm sure, faced with a strong kraevedenie , there will be respect and and a desire to work with it not against it. In fact, I'm certain of it.
-
Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
-
If our HolKraevedenie were to take off too successfully, wouldn't JosephstalinkobergoldBeria simply send in the secret police and wipe us out?
Other 'untranslateables': The German & Swiss Heimat has similarities as well as differences with your Kraevedenie. I'm sure any serious study of Heimat should be called Heimatology. (I'm afraid I'm an expert only on the 'Haema-' variety.)
And then of course there's the cloyingly cosy Danish "Hygge" (of which Birgitte, Katrine and old Kurt showed occasional signs in the last series of Borgen). Effects of over indulging in hygge: like too much sticky Danish pastry washed down with too much Carlsberg and subtitles.
And not forgetting Hygge's German first cousin, Gemu:tlichkeit (that colon should be an umlaut).
-
Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
-
Here you are Eddie: Gemütlichkeit otherwise known as Gemuetlichkeit.
Both that and Heimat are emotional, something which the British too often prefer to keep hidden. Perhaps thats the reason there's no direct translation.
-
Permalink Reply by HoL Site Admin on
-
@harringayonline @LizIxer Germans have similar literary tradition called 'ortsgebunden', lit. tied to a place. Big influence on yrs truly!
— Matt Baylis (@MattBaylis2) February 17, 2014
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
Professor Sir Kravy Denny (1788-1855) was of course the editor of the first English-Obfuscandian dictionary. The word kraevedenie is the word coined by his students in their Obfuscandian translation of the phrase "rural idiocy" ascribed to Marx in the Communist Manifesto. As with all Obfuscandian native speakers, the governing principle of written language is to avoid causing others offence or distress by mentioning or even hinting at unpleasant aspects of daily life.
-
-
Sigh. I have no idea what this means. I think this is even more obscure than the original post. How nice of Marx, though I'm sure he meant idiocy in the sense of unengaged, private and without an interest in the public realm.
But if it suggests that HOL doesn't tackle the more unpleasant parts of daily life well then you, better than anyone, knows that isn't true. And that curation of place inevitably means that you never please all of the people all of the time; that when some of the people are content , their opponents are not and that mostly people look upon squabbling over minutiae as tedious but HOL is still a good place to get rid of your unwanted stuff.
It was a thought, that's all. An idea that swirled around my head while I was reading Polonsky's excellent book that perhaps this word borrowed from a different language expressed something that we had not named in our language.
Perhaps there's a good reason for that. Perhaps English speaking people don't have a feel for place, except when it's been slapped with an English Heritage sign, you get charged 10 quid to go in or you have to take a tent and some Kendal mint cake to view it. I still say the manifesto of local particularity is a sound one that is less exclusive than the current model of conservation and preservation on the say so of a committee : http://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/local-distinctiveness
-
Permalink Reply by John D on
-
Let me know when you take the book back, Liz, so I can get it out
My Russian friend recognised kraevedenie instantly, even with my pronunciation.
-
-
I will John. It's a treasure trove of history, literature and also a view of modern Russian. A dense, fascinating read.
-
-
Another word that is difficult to translate is " Zeitgeist ". We know what it means but we don't have the emotional vocabulary to render it concisely in English.
-
-
In English we tend to use the word 'zeitgeist'!
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
