Dictionary of Russian Obscenities

by David Alan Drummond

Release Date: April, 1987

Edition: Paperback

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i would give this book 3.4374398256489564387435746 stars

who wood have thunk it that aaaaaa equals oooooffff in rusian? i am a rusian that loves to party with his badself. i memmorized this entre bookk. weinerschnitzel is my favorite word

Useful only for scholars...

...and maybe not them, either. The book has many words and phrases, but there are no indications as to which are obsolete and which are actually useful for a traveler or a student of modern Russian. There are no transliterations, no guide to the Cyrillic alphabet, no English translations of the woodcut illustrations, and no indication as to which words are scandalous and which are merely naughty.

On top of this, Drummond gives only idiomatic translations, not literal ones. Most obscenity dictionaries do this to some extent, but many of Drummond's translations are simply wrong. (I'd cite examples, but they'd keep this review from being published.) Literal translations are funnier, and give a much better sense of what exactly a culture finds obscene.

If you're reading pre-20th century Russian literature in Russian, buy this book. Otherwise, buy Christina Kunitskaya-Peterson's "International Dictionary of Obscenities." It is much more user-friendly and has four other languages to boot.