Oct 03 2008

The Truth Started Today!

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 6:20 pm

Eighty years ago today (October 3, 1908), the Russian Language newspaper Pravda (?????? – this will probably appear as question marks until I try out the UTF converter for this site’s database) which means (the) Truth. It was founded by Trotsky (the one with the striking goatee who met his end via an ice pick) in Vienna, and then smuggled into Russia. After the revolution, the paper continued to be produced, and on March 3, almost ten years later, it became the established as an official publication of the Soviet Communist Party. A lot of politics was obviously involved in the power struggles for running the paper, and other newspapers (for example Izvestia covered foreign relations) also existed to represent other branches of the government. This led to the saying “v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy” (In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).
My thanks to Wikipedia for drawing this occurrence to my attention 🙂

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6 Responses to “The Truth Started Today!”

  1. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    ‘Do you have any recent newspapers?’ — ‘No Truth left, Motherland has been sold out, all that left is Labour, cost 3 kopecks’.

  2. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    Sorry, that had to be Soviet Russia, not Motherland. And I’ve obviously messed up the punctuation in my comment. I’m not sure about the em dash between the dialogue lines, and can’t remember whether the full stop must go before the closing quote mark or after it. Please edit my comment as you find suitable.

  3. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    Here’s another one.

    Two Chukchas are lost in the tundra. One of them suggests: ‘I know Russians shoot in the air if lost.’ His partner agrees it’s a good idea and starts shooting. Eventually he stops doing so. ‘Why not shooting anymore?’ ‘Have no arrows left.’

  4. Oleg Frantsuzov says:

    A Soviet engineer is visiting Czech Republic. His Czech colleague shows the guest a nice house he owns. ‘Do you see a bridge there?’ asks the C?ech. ‘Yep.’ ‘I saved some budget money building it.’

    Next year, the Czech is visiting the Soviet Union. The Soviet engineer shows him his luxurious dacha. ‘Now, do you see a bridge there?’ asks the host. ‘Nope.’ ‘That is it.’

  5. richard mclaughlin says:

    Happy birthday Pravda.

    stumbled it Chris.

  6. ChrisM says:

    @Oleg thanks for the jokes, they translate well 🙂 Re. the punctuation, I’m not sure on the rules for a full stop in a sentence like that, but if I had to guess, I’d put it after the final quotation mark, as there are two quotes in the sentence. Anyway you know me, I tend to throw commas in sentences incorrectly, normally where I’d pause for breath, or … dramatic effect LOL
    @Rich thanks for the stumble 🙂