Siderea conducts the deepest dive possible into the history, context and significance of a particular phrase that emerged in Ukraine in 2014 and has since spread like wildfire: Путін хуйло1 (Putin khuylo: roughly, “Putin is a dickhead” or “Putin the dickhead,” depending on context, with the understanding that хуйло is a far far far stronger obscenity than dickhead is in English). That she manages to tie in everything from Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Æthelred the Unready when talking about something that began as a chant by Kharkiv soccer hooligans is impressive enough—to say nothing of the implication that Putin’s rage at Ukraine just might have something to do with “Putin Khuylo” becoming an epithet like Ivan the Terrible or Catherine the Great.
«Путін хуйло»
Jonathan Crowe
Jonathan Crowe blogs about maps at The Map Room and writes and reviews science fiction and fantasy; his work has been published by AE, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. He lives in Shawville, Quebec.
I hadn’t heard of this before. Thanks for the link.