Jokes from these times have a certain historical value, depicting the character of the epoch almost as well as long novels might. There were jokes under fascism and the Nazis too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh-a-minute reality like communism." Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently amusing situations. "Who built the White Sea Canal?" – “The left bank was built by those who told the jokes, and the right bank by those who listened.” īen Lewis claims that the political conditions in the Soviet Union were responsible for the unique humour produced there according to him, " Communism was a humour-producing machine."I can't – I just gave someone ten years for it!" "I just heard the funniest joke in the world!" "Well, go ahead, tell me!" says the other judge. A colleague approaches him and asks why he is laughing. A judge walks out of his chambers laughing his head off.In the Soviet Union, telling political jokes could be regarded as a type of extreme sport: according to Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), " anti-Soviet propaganda" was a potentially capital offense. He comments on the uncanny linguistic parallelism between the English-language "crown-crow-cow" and the Russian "korona–vorona–korova". A newspaper account of a Russian tsar's coronation had, instead of "korona" (crown), the misprint "vorona" (crow), and when next day this was apologetically ‘corrected,’ it got misprinted a second time as "korova" (cow).In Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, the fictional author of the "Foreword", Charles Kinbote, cites the following Russian joke: There were also numerous politically themed Chastushki (Russian traditional songs) in Imperial Russia. The Tsar gives his decision in writing: "Permitted to subtract two asses".
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