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Vatnik

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This article is about the political pejorative. For the word's original meaning, see Telogreika.

Activists in Ukraine using the image of "Vatnik" in the action of "Boycott Russian Films" campaign

Vatnik (Russian: ватник, pronounced [ˈvatʲnʲɪk]) is a political pejorative[1][2] used in Russia and other post-Soviet states for steadfast jingoistic followers of propaganda from the Russian government.[3]

The use of the word originates from an Internet meme first spread by Anton Chadskiy on VKontakte in 2011, and later used in Russia, Ukraine, then in other post-Soviet states. Its meaning refers to the original cartoon, which depicts a character made from the material of a padded cotton wool jacket (vatnik in Russian) and bearing a black eye, which is used to disparage someone as a blindly patriotic and unintelligent jingoist who pushes the conventional views presented in Russian government media as well as those of Russian web brigades.[4][5] The name "Vatnik" derives from the cotton wool jacket (Telogreika) that Chadskiy's cartoon character in the meme is made from.

History

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The word "vatnik" was originally an informal term for a telogreika, a type of gray, cotton-stuffed quilted jacket that is seen as "a cheap, highly unglamorous item of clothing". Russian linguist Gasan Guseinov, speaking about the jacket, said, "A vatnik is a garment of poor, destitute people who possess nothing else and who are ready to wear it for the rest of their lives."[6]

The meme was created by the Russian artist Anton Chadskiy under the pseudonym Jedem das Seine.[7][8][9] His associated picture of an anthropomorphic version of the "vatnik" jacket similar to the title character of SpongeBob SquarePants was posted on VK for the first time on September 9, 2011. In 2012, the meme became widely popular on the Internet.[10] Chadskiy created a group for the character on VK called RASHKA - THE SQUARE VATNIK. Rashka is a derogatory nickname for Russia, derived from the English pronunciation of the country's name with the Russian -k- diminutive suffix attached.[11][12][13] Chadskiy's original drawing has been reproduced and modified many times. Features that are consistently included are gray color, a red nose from drinking vodka, and a black eye, presumably from a fistfight with another vatnik.[3]

The meme became much more widespread in society after the Russo-Ukrainian War started in 2014.[10] We will not let the Russian vata into our homes[a] was the name of a protest held as part of the "Boycott Russian Films" campaign in Ukraine in 2014.[14] In late 2014, the comedy television show VATA TV (original: ВАТА TV) was shown in Ukraine. It was devoted to the "vata" phenomenon. It was hosted by the popular 5 Kanal host Viktor Lytovchenko. He mainly spoke Surzhyk, a mixed language with features of Ukrainian and Russian, during the show.[15][16]

The term has been "quickly reappropriated" and is used as a positive self-descriptor by some pro-government Russian bloggers.[17] The proud name "vatnik"[b] was one of the topics at essays and scientific works competition in the Altai State Pedagogical University, that was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union victory in the German-Soviet War (Second World War) in 2015.[18]

In early 2015, Anton Chadskiy reported that he was forced to leave Russia in November 2014 because he feared political persecution by the government.[19] He was living in Kyiv and planning to move to Berlin at the time.[13] In November 2016, the Russian government blocked Chadskiy's original "RASHKA - THE SQUARE VATNIK" community on the grounds that it "offended ethnic Russians and Russian state officials". In February 2017, a Russian teenager was sentenced to 160 hours of community service for espousing hateful language online about "vatniks".[20]

The term gained prominence in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The anti-Russian internet group NAFO uses the Vatnik slang and imagery very commonly in English-language tweets and memes.[21][22] When a disabled Russian T-72 was publicly displayed in Vilnius in February 2023, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda emphasised using it to "see the vatniks" who came to mourn its capture.[23]

Variations

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The word also exists in Ukrainian as ватник (vatnyk), in Belarusian as ватнік (vatnik), and in Latvian as vatņiks), and in Polish as waciak. Its plural in English is "vatniks", or less commonly, "vata", via a direct transliteration of the Russian collective ва́та.

Vyshyvatnik (Russian: вышиватник, romanized: vyshivatnik) is an equivalent insult for an overly patriotic Ukrainian, and is a blend of "vatnik" and vyshyvanka, a traditional type of Ukrainian embroidered shirt.[24][25]

The phrase Mobik (from моб(илизо́ванный) (mob(ilizóvannyj), “mobilized”) + -ик (-ik, diminutive suffix) is a derogatory slang term for a mobilized vatnik, usually in the Russian military. This term became popular in the West due to internet memes about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[26]

Analysis

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Journalist Vadim Nikitin, writing for American socialist magazine Jacobin, has criticized the trope of the uneducated, working-class "vatnik" Putin supporter as classist and inaccurate, writing that it "whitewashes and elides the essential role played by the middle and upper-middle classes in bringing about and sustaining Putinism". He described the trope as the latest iteration of a long history of social elitism within Russian liberalism in which it is believed that "only a miniscule [sic] elite – the intelligentsia – was capable of awakening and stewarding the mute, slumbering masses." He compared the term to Hillary Clinton's use of the phrase "basket of deplorables" to describe some supporters of Donald Trump.[27]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Ukrainian: «Не пустимо в хату російську вату»
  2. ^ Russian: Гордое имя – «ватник»

References

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  1. ^ Fialkova, Larisa; Yelenevskaia, Maria (14 April 2016). "The Crisis in Ukraine and the Split of Identity in the Russian-speaking World". Folklorica. 19. doi:10.17161/folklorica.v19i1.5721. ISSN 1920-0242. Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  2. ^ Devlin, Anne Marie (25 November 2016). "Lard-eaters, gay-ropeans, sheeple and prepositions: lexical and syntactic devices employed to position the other in Russian online political forums". Russian Journal of Communication. 9 (1): 53–70. doi:10.1080/19409419.2016.1219642. hdl:10468/4415. ISSN 1940-9419. S2CID 151382929.
  3. ^ a b Jim Kovpak (March 2015). "Why the West can't Understand Russia". Russia! magazine. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  4. ^ Shaun Walker (2 June 2016). "Ukraine bans Russian journalists accused of 'stirring hatred'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  5. ^ Kolya Camouflage (27 May 2015). ""Tesak's daughter" moved to Ukraine to organize "safari" hunting on gay people". upogau.org. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  6. ^ Bigg, Claire (18 September 2014). "Ukraine's Cryptic, Clever (And Always Insulting) Lexicon Of War". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  7. ^ Яких росіян називають словом «ватник» Archived 2015-06-26 at the Wayback Machine (in Ukrainian). Gazeta.ua. 10.04.2014
  8. ^ Chadskiy, Anton. "Vatnik". Archived from the original on 15 March 2015.
  9. ^ Антон Чадский Archived 2015-02-17 at the Wayback Machine. Vkontakte
  10. ^ a b "10 слів і фраз, що увійшли до вжитку вінничан 2014-го року". vlasno.info (in Ukrainian). 10 January 2015.[dead link]
  11. ^ "РАШКА - КВАДРАТНЫЙ ВАТНИК". Archived from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2016.
  12. ^ Создатель «Ватника» Антон Чадский: Как я стал русофобом Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian). Snob. 14.10.2014
  13. ^ a b АНТОН ЧАДСКИЙ BARHOT ИНТЕРВЬЮ Archived 2016-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, video; (in Russian). Road Control. 18.01.2015
  14. ^ «Не пустимо в хату російську вату» — театралізована акція під Держкіно Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine (in Ukrainian). Radio Liberty. 04.09.2014
  15. ^ ВАТА-TV Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian). Pervyi volont'orskiy
  16. ^ ВАТА TV Archived 2016-05-04 at the Wayback Machine. Official channel in YouTube
  17. ^ Polese, Abel; Seliverstova, Oleksandra; Pawlusz, Emilia; Morris, Jeremy (20 March 2018). Informal Nationalism After Communism: The Everyday Construction of Post-Socialist Identities. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-83860-874-3.
  18. ^ Алтайський університет оголосив конкурс творів: "Горде ім'я — «ватник» Archived 2015-01-28 at the Wayback Machine (in Ukrainian). Ukrayinska Pravda. 14.01.2015
  19. ^ У Києві порівнювали «ватників» і «бандериків» Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (in Ukrainian). Channel "24". 31.03.2015
  20. ^ "Teen Gets 160 Hours Community Service for Insulting Russian Chauvinists". The Moscow Times. 27 February 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  21. ^ S.A, Telewizja Polska. "NAFO expansion non-negotiable: Estonian PM addressing Fellas' Vilnius summit". tvpworld.com (in Polish). Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  22. ^ Michaels, Daniel (27 September 2022). "Ukraine's Internet Army of 'NAFO Fellas' Fights Russian Trolls and Rewards Donors With Dogs". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  23. ^ Stankevičius, Augustas (28 February 2023). "Russian tank displayed in Vilnius helps to 'see vatniks' in Lithuania, president says". Lithuanian National Radio and Television. Retrieved 15 May 2024.
  24. ^ Grytsenko, Oksana (8 January 2015). "Ukrainian wartime glossary: Ukrop, Vatnik and more - Jan. 09, 2015". Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  25. ^ Zaharchenko, Tanya (2015). "East Ukraine Beyond Pro and Anti: Monochrome Prefixes and Their Discontents". What Does Ukraine Think?: 53–61.
  26. ^ "mobik", Wiktionary, the free dictionary, 3 April 2024, retrieved 24 April 2024
  27. ^ Nikitin, Vadim (18 August 2022). "How Russia's Liberals Scapegoat the Working Class for Putin's War". Jacobin. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
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