Noted with thanks.

(Now that’s a better nickname!)

Oh! Now that I think about it, I have heard relatives use ‘無聊’ like this. I had always assumed they were being facetious.

I can see that your nickname is meant to be self-effacing, but I wish people would not lurk so much. I always welcome comments.

Anyway, noted with thanks about the $0.02. I should add that ‘無聊’ also has the meaning of silliness. When you call someone ‘無聊’, you may be indicating that he is so silly as to have nothing better to do.

I can’t really speak for ‘mushi’ or toska’, but on the topic of ‘無聊’, I think it would be more or less equivalent to the French ‘ennui’ (Being bron in Canada, my French is probably better than my Chinese ^^;)

From my understanding, it’s used to express:

1) boredom (i.e. ‘Je m’ennuie’ -> ‘I am bored’, literally ‘I bore myself’)
2) melancholy or listlessness
3) missing something, usually a person (‘Je m’ennuie de vous’ -> ‘I am missing you’)

In the case of #1 & #2, it describes a passive state of being rather than an active, passing feeling. The first two meanings are not really mutually exclusive, but can be taken to mean either one or the other. All three meanings do bring to mind a sense of longing, though.

> I happen to read your posts occasionally. But normally I enjoy doing it as I always learn something new from them. So, since I’m a native Russian, I thought I might help you a bit with your questions this time.

First of all, let me thank you for your kind help and express some appreciation for your very long comment!

> Another cause of ‘toska’ is derived from the word’s more colloquial meaning #2. I.e. ‘toska’ is caused by boredom.

I think “toska” in this meaning would be similar to “tsumaranai (つまらない)” in Japanese or “wu liao (無聊)” in Chinese.

> Finally, one thing you should keep in mind when you build your view and opinion about Russians – don’t be fooled by Turgenev and other Russian writers of that time. It’s good to learn the history and understand the development of Russian culture. But don’t forget today is not the 19th century, and not even the 20th. People have already drastically changed. The Soviet period itself had a huge impact.

Of course I am aware of that, but for some reason it is only the 19th century cultural stuff that gets trickled down to my world. Rachmaninov was my “gateway drug” to classical music. I still remember listening to a radio broadcast of his works one fine spring evening when I was teenager. I felt like an atomic bomb had just been dropped on me. I rushed off to buy CDs of his works the next day.

Speaking of that, I have another story to tell. A while ago, I had my Russian tutor correcting some sentences I translated from English to Russian. He pointed at a sentence where I translated “mom” as “mamushka” and frowned: “Where did you get that from?” I was stuck for an answer (though I suspect it was probably from one of those 19th century Russian stories that I read). He laughed for five minutes and said “but that is just so… 19th century!” and laughed some more…

So what do you recommend for reading in the post-Soviet era? I am really not familiar in that area and would like to try out something humorous. I need more exposure to the Russian sense of humour. Perhaps something in the style of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Every page of “The Golovlyov Family” was sprinkled with an unfailing sense of humour. I enjoyed that book immensely and wonder if there are living humorists like that in Russia.

I really appreciate the link – I have read it and it is full of interesting and useful information. Many thanks for that!

> One of the real joys of reading your blog is that I come away thinking of something new and interesting each time.

Thank you for your kind words. That is what this blog is for indeed.

> I’ve always been interested in Russian literature, so I read some of the ‘classic’ stuff when I was younger. I still haven’t read many titles, but sadly don’t have a lot of free time nowadays!

That is why I love smartphones. I used to use a Treo phone and now use an iPhone to read downloaded texts from online libraries like Gutenberg or Aozora Bunko, whenever I have a few minutes of downtime standing in a lineup or waiting for a meeting to start. A spare minute here and a spare minute there, and before I know it I have finished reading an entire book.

I also must commend the small size of Japanese books – they are light to carry and perfect for reading on a packed train during rush hour. I polish off a lot of Japanese books that way.

> As for me, I rather appreciate Eugene, but I do think the book really sings during the parts that are from her POV. The narrative parts with Eugene in it is like the trellis, imo, and Tatyana is like breathing & flowering vines. She really brings the whole thing to life.

Well, Eugene… I guess he is the type that young and inexperienced girls would fall for. (For the record, he is not really my type.)

One of the highlights of the story is that people grow at different speeds. Eugene is just same old same old when he meets Tatyana again in St. Petersburg society. But what amazing transformation that Tatyana had undergone…

First of all, ‘toska’ is not simply a melancholy, of course. In Russian dictionaries ‘toska’ is normally represented with two main meanings:
1. melancholy, despondency, ennui, yearning, and even anguish of mind
2. (colloquial) boredom, tedium, boredom caused by dullness/dreariness

A good example to describe ‘toska’ would be a feeling of homesickness: if you are forced to leave your country for political reasons, for example, so that you have to live in another country, with a totally different culture and attitude to life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You realize you can’t go back no matter how much you want. You realize you’ll never be able to enjoy something you got used to since your childhood. It makes you depressing, and, as a result, it borns the feeling of ‘toska’ within you.

Homesickness is a good example because it depicts the nature of ‘toska’ (meaning #1, see above). It shows how ‘toska’ is born from obedience/limitations and being unable to fix it.
For example, you may feel ‘toska’ when you’re imprisoned. You may feel ‘toska’ when you have to study abroad and miss your boyfriend/girlfriend/parents/friends.
Whatever the reason of the obedience/limitations is, whether it’s natural or forced by someone, more important is the outcome feeling – ‘toska’. It’s born because you lost something important and you can’t return it.

Another cause of ‘toska’ is derived from the word’s more colloquial meaning #2. I.e. ‘toska’ is caused by boredom. For example one might say: “Blah, I hate it when the electricity’s gone… such a ‘toska’… and even my cell phone’s batteries died!”. OR “Such a ‘toska’ around this place, let’s go to another club! Hopefully it’s more lively and cheerful there.” But, still, in such situations this is more common to hear a word ‘boredom’ rather than ‘toska’

So, now let’s switch to the folktale about the Siberian peasant. Let me state it clearly first, it’s not really a wide-spread and common folktale here. I was born in the 1980′s and I hardly remember if I heard this story myself ever since then. Well, I probably did as something resonated somewhere within my brain when I read it here. And nevertheless, I might probably read or heard it only once or two in my life.

So, why did that man gone wild? First of all, hard, routine work full of massive and unceasing efforts. basically speaking, he’s tired. Both, physically and mentally. Why physically? It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? And why mentally? That’s the collaboration of several factors, but mostly: boredom and inability to change anything. Why boredom? Well, routine work bores many people, especially when it takes lots of physical efforts. And why inability to change anything? Because as a peasant he can’t do anything else. From his very first day on Earth he was never taught writing and perhaps even reading. From his very first day on Earth he’s a peasant, he’s a THING that belongs to someone else. He has no freedom. The only thing he’s ever been taught is to work in fields. And he is probably smart enough to understand that an uprising won’t change it too. He’ll either get killed by the government or won’t even find other peasants to support him and initiate the uprising. Of course, there might have been other daily troubles to cause such a mental disease.

Now, if you ask me, if people are born with depressing bugs (fusagi no mushi) that live within you and can attack you once with a strong melancholy… I don’t think I can give you an answer. This is a more a psychological or even philosophical question about depression, its roots, and development in people’s mind. But one thing I’m definitely sure of – once these bugs appear and start being parasitic of human brain, it’s very hard to exterminate and get rid of them. So yeah, I think “fusagi no mushi” is a well-thought metaphor for a mental disease, its nature, and its consequences. By the way, in those days of 19th century, is was also possible to call the melancholy/depression disease by the word ‘toska’.

As for Russians and that ‘resolution to meet toska’… I think it’s a bit different here. It’s rather a resolution to meet all kind of difficulties at any time up to the point where resolution becomes desire. To my mind this is something that is simply a part of the Russian genes these days.
Just a couple of facts:
- The serfage was only cancelled in Russia in 1861.
- Afterwards people were treated like hellish litter by Stalin and communism in general.
- Add to this the sorrowfulness of the World War I, followed by a Civil War and World War II.
- Not to mention the Tatar yoke, the sadistic Tsars like Ivan IV the Great, etc
So, Russians are genetically used to being patient and indecisive when it comes to dealing with the authorities. This is one of the reasons the country is buried with corruption today – people got used to searching for workarounds when they need something from the government. This is also the reasons why Russians are quite aggressive when it comes to dealing with interpersonal relationships, especially with foreigners. This is the way to reduce stress of the daily life difficulties.

What’s even worse, most of the people here misses the powerful Tsar/Imperator/Fuehrer/Ruler. They are so used to being slaves waiting for the inevitable troubles that they are longing for such a leader (That’s why Putin is so popular – he’s like a strong Tsar who cares for his slaves and protects from the international aggression). One might call it a resolution. But I prefer to call it stupidity and masochism. Of course all people are different. And as time goes by and people grow in a post-Soviet environment the whole nation mentality slightly changes. And maybe the time will come when Russians become a totally different nation. But it’s a long, extremely long way and we’re just at its beginning.

Finally, one thing you should keep in mind when you build your view and opinion about Russians – don’t be fooled by Turgenev and other Russian writers of that time. It’s good to learn the history and understand the development of Russian culture. But don’t forget today is not the 19th century, and not even the 20th. People have already drastically changed. The Soviet period itself had a huge impact.

Please forgive the clumsy direct link.

This article raised some interesting questions for me about different world views; fueled, I might add, by several of your entries – this one and the one on the many words for sadness in Chinese. One of the real joys of reading your blog is that I come away thinking of something new and interesting each time.

As for me, I rather appreciate Eugene, but I do think the book really sings during the parts that are from her POV. The narrative parts with Eugene in it is like the trellis, imo, and Tatyana is like breathing & flowering vines. She really brings the whole thing to life.

I’d love to learn some Russian, if only I had the time…. Good luck with your study!

By the way, may I ask how did you find “Eugene Onegin”?

The reason I asked is that I cried like a pig when I first read it. It was one of very few books that ever did that to me. I was eighteen or nineteen at the time.

I think the titular character should really be Tatyana instead of Onegin.