All because of propaganda: why was the USSR called the “motherland of elephants”

0

Those who spent the times of the USSR can remember the ironic saying “The Soviet Union is the homeland of elephants”. In this way, the citizens of the country mocked the exaggerated or even imaginary achievements of the state.

Phrase from anecdotes

Researchers of Soviet folklore associate the phrase “USSR – the homeland of elephants” with jokes that were popular in those days. It was forbidden to make fun of the state in the mass media or official culture, so such jokes were invented by the people and passed on from mouth to mouth. In fact, the joke was a form of oral folk creativity.

Many jokes were political. Among them, they laughed at the difference between the real life of Soviet citizens and the picture created by propaganda. Here is an example of such a joke using the phrase about elephants:

Students at school in different countries are asked to write an essay on an arbitrary topic, but that it should talk about elephants. An English schoolboy writes the essay “Industrial use of elephants”, the French one – “Sexual life of elephants”, the German one – “Elephants are the predecessors of tanks”, and the Soviet one – “USSR – the homeland of elephants”.

This anecdote is based on national stereotypes associated with different nations. Thus, the British were considered inventors and entrepreneurs, the French as romantics, the Germans as a militarized society, and the Soviet people had only those successes that they were told about in the press, and which in no way affected their daily life. For example, to make people proud of the space program or nuclear developments. they expressed this pride sometimes in a very strange way.

In fact, it was both false and exaggerated. After all, technologies developed even faster in the USA and Europe. Similarly, the statement that elephants come from the territory of the USSR is both false and an exaggeration.

Connection with the Cold War

Of course, phrases about the homeland of elephants amused people who understood the real situation on the international stage during the Cold War. Then the USSR tried to compete with the USA for the title of superpower. And the mass media inflated any successes of the Land of the Soviets to an unprecedented level, even when it was about something insignificant.

Moreover, blatant plagiarism from Western models was often called Soviet inventions, which have no analogues in the world. Those who saw a real prototype and could compare the quality immediately remembered the aphorism about the homeland of elephants. After all, for the Union, these animals were “their own”, like household appliances or other developments that Soviet engineers stole from the West.