Preved

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Padonkaffsky jargon used in graffiti in the city park of Aalst, Belgium (2007) Aalst preved.JPG
Padonkaffsky jargon used in graffiti in the city park of Aalst, Belgium (2007)
Promotional poster for the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine features its chief editor Leonid Parfyonov crying "Preved" with the Preved bears flying on the background (c. 2007). Newsweek preved.jpg
Promotional poster for the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine features its chief editor Leonid Parfyonov crying "Preved" with the Preved bears flying on the background (c.2007).

Preved (Russian : Преве́д) is a term used in the Padonkaffsky jargon, a meme in the Russian-speaking Internet which developed out of a heavily circulated picture, and consists of choosing alternative spellings for words for comic effect. The picture, a modified version of John Lurie's watercolor Bear Surprise , whose popularity was stoked by emails and blogs, features a man and a woman having sex in the clearing of a forest, being surprised by a bear calling "Surprise!" with its paws raised. In later Russian adaptations, the bear shouts "Preved!" (a deliberate misspelling of privet, приве́т – "hi!"). In keeping with a popular trend of image manipulation, the iconic bear — dubbed Medved  [ ru ] (Russian : Медвед), a misspelling of медведь ("bear") — has been inserted into many other pictures where his appearance adds a new dimension to the joke.

Contents

The word and the bear image have found their way into the mainstream mass media, such as a poster for the Russian edition of Newsweek .

Eventually, it has become known that the author of the altered picture with the word "preved" was user Lobzz from site Dirty.ru, real name Roman Yatsenko. The authorship of the word itself is still unclear, although the "unfinished" version, "prevet" was traced to 2003. [1]

Preved is identified by a specific pattern of alternative spelling which emerged from the word. In this pattern, voiceless consonants are replaced with their voiced counterparts, and unstressed vowels are interchanged pair-wise – a and o stand in for each other, as do e and i. The words уча́снег (uchasneg) (a misspelling of участник (uchastnik), "user" or "participant"), preved itself, and кагдила (kagdila) (a misspelling of как дела (kak dela), "how are you") illustrate this pattern.

The larger trend of alternative spellings, called "olbansky yazyk" ("Olbanian language", misspelled "Albanian") developed from the padonki movement which originated on sites such as udaff.com. That trend uses the opposite conversion from the Preved trend – voiced consonants are replaced with their voiceless counterparts (which are sometimes doubled). For vowels, o is replaced with a and e with i. For example, áвтор (ávtor, "author") would be spelled áффтар (áfftar) or áфтар (áftar). The latter exhibits a sort of eye dialect.

This meme has made its way to the American spotlight, as another reference of this popular term was used in a cartoon of Steve Jobs yelling this phrase in an image that was used in the mid to late 2000's as a custom recovery logo for devices such as the iPhone 2g, the iPod touch, and iPhone 3gs that was exclusive for the early jailbreak tools like PwnageTool. This image was spread all around social media in places like Reddit, and other small developer forums.

"Medved" in politics

In Russian, MEDVED (Russian : МЕДВЕД) is an abbreviation of the name of the Interregional Unity Movement (Russian : Межрегиональное Движение Единство) - a pro-government movement that formed a faction in the 3rd State Duma (1999-2002), long before the appearance of the Internet meme. [2] The movement's logo featured a brown bear. In 2002, the Interregional Unity Movement merged into the newly formed United Russia party. United Russia adopted the Unity bear logo, later changing its color from brown to white. [3] This, along with the Internet meme, influenced the fact that the word "medved" is often associated with Dmitry Medvedev, President of Russia from 2008 to 2012. [4]

During an internet conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 6 July 2006, during which all interested Runet users asked him questions through a Yandex portal, the question "PREVED, Vladimir Vladimirovich! How do you feel about MEDVED?" received the largest number of votes (28,424). [5] This event played a significant role in the "Preved-Medved" meme gaining fame and popularity even among those who rarely use the Internet. [6] In the end, the question was not asked to Putin (the organizers considered this and some other questions to be a flash mob); the question "How do you feel about the Medved' magazine?" was asked instead. Some representatives of non-Russian press took the original "Medved" question literally; in particular, Associated Press reportedly interpreted it as a reference to then-deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. [7] [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Russia</span> Political party in Russia

The All-Russian Political Party United Russia is the ruling political party of Russia. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 325 of the 450 seats in the State Duma as of 2022, having constituted the majority in the chamber since 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dmitry Medvedev</span> President of Russia from 2008 to 2012

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician who has been serving as deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev was also the president of Russia from 2008 to 2012 and prime minister of Russia from 2012 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 Russian presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Russia on 2 March 2008 and resulted in the election of Dmitry Medvedev as the third President of Russia. Medvedev was elected for a four-year term with the support of incumbent president Vladimir Putin and five political parties, received 71% of the vote, and defeated Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

KVN is a Russian and formerly Soviet comedy television show and international competition in which teams compete by giving humorous answers and show prepared sketches. The show originated in the Soviet Union and is based on the earlier program An Evening of Funny Questions. The program was first aired on the Soviet First Channel on 8 November 1961.

Medvedev and female Medvedeva (Медве́дева), from Russian medved’ (медве́дь), meaning the animal "bear", are Slavic surnames. Notable bearers of the name include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unity (Russian political party)</span> Political party in Russia

Unity was a Russian political party that was created on 3 October 1999, supported by Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and dozens of Russian governors to counter the threat which the Kremlin perceived from the Fatherland-All Russia alliance. It was also unofficially dubbed "Medved’" or "Medvedi" (bears), as "MeDvEd" was an acronym of its full name. Later the party adopted a brown bear for its symbol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Agency for State Property Management</span> Russian government agency

The Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) is a subdivision of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development that manages Russia's federal state property.

Medved means bear in several Slavic languages, including Slovenian, Russian, Czech, Serbian and Slovak. It may refer to:

<i>Bear Surprise</i> Watercolor painting with a bear

Bear Surprise is a watercolor painting by American painter/musician John Lurie, the style of which has been described as primitivist and naïve. The painting depicts a couple having sex in a meadow, with a bear standing in front of them, with forepaws in a distinctive position. There is a speech bubble beside the head of the bear, which reads "Surprise!".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palestine–Russia relations</span> Bilateral relations

The bilateral relations between the State of Palestine and Russia have a complex history, deeply interwoven with Russian and Soviet relations with the Israeli enterprise, Palestinian nationalism, and Third World national liberation movements. Between 1956 and 1990, Soviet–Palestinian relations were part of the then-ongoing Soviet–American confrontation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Antimonopoly Service</span> Russian government organization

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) is the federal-level executive governmental organ that controls the execution of the antitrust law and related areas.

Dorofei (2004–2014) was a rare Neva Masquerade cat with blue eyes belonging to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his wife Svetlana Medvedeva. Dorofei took over the title of First Pet from Vladimir Putin's black labrador Koni, when Medvedev was inaugurated on 7 May 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Padonkaffsky jargon</span> Cant language

Padonkaffsky jargon, also known as Olbanian, is a slang developed by a Runet subculture called padonki (падонки). It started as an Internet slang language originally used in the Russian Internet community. It is comparable to the English-based Leet. Padonkaffsky jargon became so popular that Dmitry Medvedev jokingly suggested that Olbanian be taught in schools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">People's Freedom Party "For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption"</span> Former liberal-democratic political party in Russia

People's Freedom Party "For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption" was a liberal-democratic political party in Russia founded on 13 December 2010 by opposition politicians Vladimir Ryzhkov, Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Milov and de facto dissolved on 16 June 2012. The name is a reference to the original liberal-democratic Party of Popular Freedom.

Yandex Search is a search engine owned by the company Yandex, based in Russia. In January 2015, Yandex Search generated 51.2% of all of the search traffic in Russia according to LiveInternet.

<i>Putin. Corruption</i> Independent report on alleged corruption

Putin. Corruption. was an independent report on alleged corruption in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle published by the leaders of opposition liberal democratic People's Freedom Party in Russia. The report was presented by them at the press conference on 28 March 2011. This was the first large-scale project of the People’s Freedom Party.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Putin! is an English title of the erotic calendar, released by the Russian publishing house "Fakultet" for the 58th birthday of Vladimir Putin on 7 October 2010. The calendar features twelve female students of the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University (MSU), in erotic lingerie, each for every month, with a short message. The print run consisted of 50,000 copies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public image of Vladimir Putin</span> Domestic and international perception

The public image of Vladimir Putin concerns the image of Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, among residents of Russia and worldwide. According to the Russian non-governmental organization Levada Center, about 85% of the Russian population approved of Putin in the beginning of 2023, the highest in nearly 8 years.

The 2018 presidential campaign of Vladimir Putin was announced on 6 December 2017, during Putin's speech at the GAZ automobile plant. He is the 4th and incumbent President of Russia; previously he was the 33rd Prime Minister of Russia, 2nd President of Russia and 4th Federal Security Service Director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Medvedev cabinet</span> Composition of Russian government from 2018 to 2020

Dmitry Medvedev's Second Cabinet was the composition of the Russian government from 18 May 2018 to 15 January 2020 under the leadership of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

References

  1. "Preved-Effect" (in Russian) Archived September 17, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "Ведомости: "МЕДВЕД всея Руси"" [Vedomosti: "MEDVED of All Rus'"] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2009-01-09.
  3. ""Единая Россия" поменяла символику: бурый медведь стал белым" [United Russia has changed its symbols: the brown bear has become white] (in Russian). Newsru. 2005-11-26.
  4. "Блогосфера отреагировала на выдвижение Медведева: "Превед, Медвед!"" [The blogosphere reacted to Medvedev’s nomination: "Preved, Medved!"] (in Russian). Yekaterinburg Online. 2007-12-10.
  5. "Questions to Vladimir Putin" (in Russian). Yandex. 2006-07-01. Archived from the original on December 31, 2007. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
  6. "69 % россиян вообще не пользуются Интернет — превед-медвед выходит в "офлайн"" [69% of Russians don’t use the Internet at all—preved-bear goes "offline"] (in Russian).
  7. "Интернет: Дмитрия Медведева перепутали с Медведом" [Dmitry Medvedev has been confused with Medved] (in Russian). Lenta.Ru. 2006-07-07. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
  8. Krongauz, Maksim (2013). Самоучитель Олбанского[Olbanian self-instruction manual] (in Russian). Moscow: AST. ISBN   978-5-17-077807-2.