Andrei Siniavski
THE JOKE INSIDE THE JOKE
Whenever two Russians or three Jews get together, or for
that matter citizens of any Soviet nationality with a Russian school–
ing, or even Poles and Czechs, as long as the connection is socialist,
they 'pelt each other with jokes, competing and arguing all the way.
It doesn't really matter what kind ofjokes they are . There is a certain
exhilaration in asking the invariable, "Do you remember the one
about ...
?"
and to hear, "Of course, I do!" in response . This is in–
evitably followed by, "Let me tell you the joke where...." We like
to know and be with those people who are geared toward jokes. They
are our kind of people , meaning we understa.nd each other at once.
Among close friends, we are used to telling jokes as a substitute
for the latest news or at least to reminiscing about the jokes we
remember. We seem unaware of how fortunate we are to live side by
side with the joke and exist in an era of folk art , marked by the
flowering of an immense folkloric genre.
We philologists, historians, or ethnographers sometimes
dream: if only I had been alive during the Middle Ages, for exam–
ple, or the Neolithic, when epics, sagas, and fairy tales were being
composed and sung in the natura! course of things; how many great
truths, which are still shrouded in obscurity, I would have gleaned; I
would have partaken in the making of poetry at its very source!
Meanwhile, right before us or next to us, a mystery is being un–
folded, in which we take part without even realizing it. Scholarship
has not yet gotten to it. I am referring to folklore and the joke, at
which it is high time to look more attentively.
Because the joke aspires to so little and is contiguous to our
lives, it gets insufficient attention. It is not at all like the heroic epic
or wedding ritual. The joke is nothing special, a trifle, a routine
detail.
It is always more or less indecent and obscene, even if it does
not touch on frivolous and scabrous themes that are typical for its
twists and turns. Even so, it is still obscene. The transgression of a
generally accepted behavioral or verbal norm is basic to the genre
and the conditions of its functional development and existence. It is
Editor's Note: This essay originally appeared in the Russian emigre: journal,
Sintak–
sis,
under the pseudonym, Abram Tertz.
It
is translated by Olga Matich.
