Bryansk wolf

A Bryansk wolf is a Russian idiom used to describe a treacherous person. The term has little to do with wolves from Bryansk. Its first recorded use is reported in Jacques Rossi's The Gulag Handbook in the sentence "a wolf from the Bryansk forest is your friend, not me!"[1][2]

The phrase is similar to the Russian idiom of the Tambov wolf, referring to economic migrants who moved to Tambov to work at very low rates, thus lowering wages for all in the region. In Russian, the phrase is "Тамбовский волк тебе товарищ", or "a Tambov wolf is your comrade". It rose in popularity from the 1956 Soviet film The Rumyantsev Case.[3]

Meaning

The term's usage in a sentence is listed in the Great Dictionary of Russian Nicknames (Russian: Большой словарь русских прозвищ), where it describes Vasily Ivanovich, a member of the Soviet Duma, as a Bryansk wolf for working as a "bright representative".[4]

Artistic usage

Russian poet Yuz Aleshkovsky mentions Bryansk wolves in his poem "Comrade Stalin, You're a Real Big Scholar" in order to contrast the life of Stalin with that of the Russian people.[5][6]

"Comrade Stalin, you’re a real big scholar,

You know what’s going on in linguistics,

But I'm a simple Soviet convict

And my comrade is a gray Bryansk wolf."

Bryansk wolves are also mentioned in Leonid Filatov's fairy tale “The Tale of Fedot the Strelets”[7] and in the song “Parcels” by Lesopoval.[8]

Tourism
  • In the A.K. Tolstoy Park in Bryansk, there is a sculpture titled "Bryansk Wolf" by A. M. Evsyukov, which was created in 2007.[9]
  • The last exhibition at the Bryansk Forest Museum was titled "The Return of the Bryansk Wolf".[10]
  • Since the 2011 season, the Bryansk wolf has been the official mascot of the FC Dynamo Bryansk.[11]

Status

Bryansk wolves no longer exist in the wild, and the remaining 49 wolves remain at Bryansky Les Nature Reserve. This is due, in part, to farmers seeing them as a nuisance.[12]

References
  1. "Тамбовский волк тебе товарищ". www.bibliotekar.ru. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  2. Rossi, Jacques. (1989). The Gulag handbook : an encyclopedia dictionary of Soviet penitentiary institutions and terms related to the forced labor camps. Paragon House. OCLC 231004970.
  3. "Тамбовский волк". www.tstu.ru. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  4. Walter, Harry; Mokienko, Valeriĭ Mikhaĭlovich (2007). Большой словарь русских прозвищ (in Russian). ОЛМА Медиа Групп. p. 141. ISBN 978-5-373-00435-0.
  5. "Юз Алешковский - Песни". yuz.ru. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  6. Marsh, Rosalind (2017-04-21). Images of Dictatorship: Stalin in Literature. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-76202-1.
  7. "Леонид Филатов. Про Федота-стрельца". lib.ru. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  8. "Текст песни "Посылочки" на сайте "Энциклопедия шансона"". RussHanson. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  9. "БРЯНСКИЙ ГОРОДСКОЙ СОВЕТ НАРОДНЫХ ДЕПУТАТОВ". Bryansk City Council of People's Deputies. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  10. "Брянский волк вернулся в "Брянский лес"" (in Russian). 2009. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  11. "Талисманом брянского "Динамо" станет Волк". БРЯНСК.RU. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
  12. Chernyshova, Yevgeniya. "На брянский племенной скот охотятся волки". www.agroxxi.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2020-05-25.

Further reading
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