concept
Prishibeyevshchina
prishibeyevshchina
also: пришибеевщина, Prishibeyevism
A term coined from the story's title character and current in Russian ever since, denoting petty, self-appointed officious authoritarianism -- the impulse to police and punish one's neighbors' private lives (their singing, their lamps, their gossip) in the name of 'order,' exercised by someone with no real authority to do so and no capacity to see the harm in it.
Reading notes
- Sergeant Prishibeyev §19 I've got it written down, sir
Prishibeyev's private ledger of neighbors' 'offenses' -- who sings, who keeps a light burning, who is suspected of witchcraft -- is the story's clearest image of what would come to be called prishibeyevshchina: surveillance and denunciation exercised by someone with no legal standing to do either, in the name of an 'order' only he can.
- Sergeant Prishibeyev §24 Disperrrse! Don't crowd together! Go home!
The closing image -- freshly sentenced and walking out of the very courtroom that just punished him, Prishibeyev cannot stop himself from barking orders at a crowd of onlookers. The habit has become identity; the term prishibeyevshchina, coined from this story, has denoted petty officious authoritarianism in Russian ever since.
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