Kuzma's mother

Kuzma's mother or Kuzka's mother (Russian: Кузькина мать Kuzkina mat; Kuzka is a diminutive of the given name Kuzma) is a part of the Russian idiomatic expression "to show Kuzka's mother to someone" (Russian: Показать кузькину мать (кому-либо) Pokazat kuzkinu mat (komu-libo)), an expression of an unspecified threat or punishment, such as "to teach someone a lesson" or "to punish someone in a brutal way". It entered the history of the foreign relations of the Soviet Union as part of the image of Nikita Khrushchev, along with the shoe-banging incident and the phrase "We will bury you".

Nikita Khrushchev, 1960

Monument of Kuzkin's mother in Odojev

The exact origin of the expression is unclear although it is present in the popular 1942 comedy Švejk Prepares for Battle, a Soviet adaptation of The Good Soldier Švejk starring Boris Tenin.[1]

In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev mentions various "interesting and peculiar situations", including an occasion of him using this expression while mentioning that it was not the first time it confused the translators.[2] The footnote in this volume to this item says that the 1999 Russian edition gave a mistaken "scientific etymology" of the expression derived from the folk name Kuzka the bug of the pest insect Anisoplia austriaca, which overwinters deep under the soil, so it is hard to uncover it. According to the editors, this was guesswork on the part of an annotator who was suffering from an illness.

Viktor Sukhodrev, a personal interpreter of Khrushchev and later Alexei Kosygin, said in an interview that Khrushchev first used this expression in public during the 1959 kitchen debate with Richard Nixon at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park exposition centre, Moscow.[3] During a discussion about communism versus capitalism Khrushchev boasted that the Soviet Union will "catch up with and surpass" (догонит и перегонит) the United States, and "we shall show you Kuzka's mother". The interpreter was stunned and said something literal about the mother of Kuzma.[4]

Phraseologic dictionaries from the 19th century record other versions of the saying about Kuzka's mother, such as "to let someone know Kuzka's mother's name" or "to learn Kuzka's mother's name".[5]

Because of the phrase's use in Cold War diplomacy, it became a code word for the atomic bomb.[6] In particular, the Tsar Bomba 50 MT yield thermonuclear test device was nicknamed "Kuzka's mother" by its builders.