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| ] riding a sleigh pulled by his donkey Proshka. A snapshot from the controversial election video.]] | ] riding a sleigh pulled by his donkey Proshka. A snapshot from the controversial election video.]] | ||
| '''Zhirinovsky's donkey''', named '''Proshka''' ({{lang-ru|Прошка}}, diminutive from Prokhor), a black male ] claimed to be owned by Russian populist nationalist liberal democratic politician ], the leader of the conservative far-right ]. The animal became prominent during the ] in which Zhirinovsky was a candidate. The donkey is named after Russian businessman ] who was another candidate in the same election. | '''Zhirinovsky's donkey''', named '''Proshka''' ({{lang-ru|Прошка}}, diminutive from Prokhor), a black male ] claimed to be owned by Russian populist nationalist liberal democratic politician ], the leader of the conservative far-right ]. The animal became prominent during the ] in which Zhirinovsky was a candidate. The donkey is named after Russian businessman ] who was another candidate in the same election. | ||
Revision as of 01:44, 1 April 2012
Zhirinovsky's donkey, named Proshka (Template:Lang-ru, diminutive from Prokhor), a black male donkey claimed to be owned by Russian populist nationalist liberal democratic politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the conservative far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. The animal became prominent during the 2012 Russian presidential election in which Zhirinovsky was a candidate. The donkey is named after Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov who was another candidate in the same election.
On 6 February 2012, Zhirinovsky's released an election advertisement video (named Troika at the official site of the LDPR, with the title remaining little known since it was quickly distributed on Youtube under different names). In that controversial ad, Zhirinovsky appeared sitting in a sleigh harnessed with the donkey, from where he claimed that the "little wretched donkey" is the symbol of Russia and that if he would become President a "daring troika" would return as a symbol of Russia. In the video, Zhirinovsky furiously whipped the animal to move the sleigh across the snow-covered backyard of his dacha.
International organisations People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) have accused Zhirinovsky of cruelty to animals. The scandalous video was widely discussed in the Russian media, including by Zhirinovsky himself in a number of presidential debates on TV, as well as in interviews and in comedy shows.
Background
Zhirinovsky is a veteran of Russian politics who has participated in five Russian presidential elections.the founder and long-standing leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. Despite its name and its proclaimed centrist and reformist outlook, the party is frequently described as "neither liberal nor democratic." It is usually regarded as far-right and is identified with Russian ultranationalism, right-wing populism, or national populism and Conservative. Its ideology is based primarily on Zhirinovsky's ideas of "imperial reconquest" (a "renewed Russian Empire") and authoritarian vision of a 'Greater Russia.'"
Zhirinovsky is "often viewed as something of a clown" and "a showman of Russian politics, blending populist and nationalist rhetoric, anti-Western invective and a brash, confrontational style". His campaign slogan for 2012 was "Vote Zhirinovsky, or things will get worse". This is the latest piece in series of his bright populist slogans, including such mottos as "No lie, no fear!" and "For the poor, for the Russians!".
Zhirinovsky confronted with a rival presidential candidate oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov on several Russian TV talk shows and presidential debates in 2012; he also criticized Prokhorov on debates with other candidates and in various interviews. On the last episode of debates with Prokhorov, just before the elections, Zhirinovsky produced a scandal, calling those Russian celebrities which supported Prokhorov, including a pop-diva Alla Pugacheva, "prostitutes" ("I thought you are an artful person, politician, cunning man, but you are just a clown and a psycho" replied Pugacheva. "I am what I am. And such is my charm" replied Zhirinovsky).
Eventually, in the 2012 Russian presidential election Zhirinovsky was fourth with 6.22% of vote, just behind his arch-rival Prokhorov, who received 7.94% of the vote.
Controversial video
The thirty second video was released on the Internet on 6 February 2012, as a part of Zhirinovsky's election campaign. The video is titled "Troika" at the official site of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
In the video, Zhirinovsky wearing a black fur coat and a black ushanka hat, sits in a sleigh harnessed with the black donkey. Zhirinovsky begins to speak, claiming that the "little wretched donkey is the symbol of Russia" and that if he, Zhirinovsky, would become the President, a "daring troika" would return as a symbol of Russia. While making the proclamation, Zhirinovsky whips the animal. As the donkey does not immediately pull, Zhirinovsky shouts "It cannot move... The whole country got stuck..." and continuous "Go! Go! Go!" while furiously whipping the animal into moving across the snow-covered backyard of his dacha. A voice-over concludes the video: "Zhirinovsky — it will get better!"
The video was wildly discussed on the Internet.
In a televised election debates, Putin's representative Natalya Narochnitskaya accused Zhirinovsky of disdain towards the people of Russia, by projecting pessimism and aggression through this video. Zhirinovsky replied that the video is an allegory of what the rulers of Russia had made with the country in the last hundred years.
Symbolism
The troika, a traditional Russian harness driving combination. The name troika (тройка), "triplet" or "trio") is unique in that it is using three horses harnessed abreast and riding with different horse gaits – the middle horse trots and the side horses canter. At full speed a troika could reach 45–50 kilometres per hour (28–31 mph), which was a very high speed on land for vehicles in the 17th-19th centuries, making the troika closely associated with the fast ride. The troika was developed from the 18th century, first being used for speedy delivering of mail on the yam routes.
Troika has become a cultural icon of Russia, especially after it was featured in a scene of Nikolay Gogol's novel Dead Souls, where a "troika-bird" rides through the vast expanses of Russia (Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you?). Gogol's "troika-bird" became a literary symbol of Russia despite it was noted that the person carried by the troika, the protagonist of the novel, Chichikov, was actually a fraudster buying the "dead souls", i.e. the documents on ownership of the dead serfs whose death was still not registered by population censuses, in order to put them into pledge and in such a way to make money as well as a fake fame of rich serf owner. The paradox that the "troika-bird" of Russia carries the swindler Chichikov has been discussed in Vasily Shukshin's short story Started Skidding ("Забуксовал").
The donkey
According to Zhirinovsky, the animal featuring in the video was his own — a present given to him on his 60th birthday and is kept on his dacha land, having not being used for any work for the last 5 years. The animal is claimed by Zhirinovsky to be well-fed, to have a separate lodgings and overall to live in conditions found "nowhere in the world".
Naming
Proshka is the diminutive form of the Greek and Slavic name Prokhor. Zhirinovsky first confessed that his donkey is named Proshka during TV debates with another presidential candidate, communist Gennady Zyuganov (in a surprising move, instead of criticizing each other, the two veterans of Russian politics united in criticism of all the younger presidential candidates: Vladimir Putin, Sergey Mironov and especially the youngest one, Mikhail Prokhorov). Later Zhirinovsky confirmed the name of the ass as "Proshka, Prokhor" during his vivid performance in the comedy talk show Prozhektorperiskhilton on Channel One TV.
It was not for the first time that Zhirinovsky named his domestic animals after fellow politicians. In the same Channel One show, Zhirinovsky also confessed that once he had owned a male sheep called Ben after the initials of Russian politician Boris Efimovich Nemtsov (on another talk show back in 1990s, Zhirinovsky had thrown orange juice in the face of Boris Nemtsov when Nemtsov goaded him about his sexual life). Zhirinovsky said he had butchered Ben, but had found the mutton distasteful.
Allegations of animal cruelty
International organisations People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) have accused Zhirinovsky of cruelty to animals. Zhirinovsky responded to criticism, saying that similar treatment is commonplace in the Arab world and that in fact the animal been treated "better than many people".
The Central Electoral Commission of Russia commented that there is no regulation on whether and how presidential candidates could use animals in propaganda, but that if the candidates do so, they should take all the risks connected with that.
Nikolay Pomogalov, the owner of the donkey farm "Wonder-donkey" in Crimea, Ukraine, charged Zhirinovsky in court, demanding from the politician a public apology for his actions with the donkey.
In popular culture
Following Zhirinovsky's ass-ad premiere, a video appeared on Youtube in which a donkey called to vote for Zhirinovsky. This video with a clay-made animal met an angry reaction from some Anglophone users on Youtube, who could not understand who the donkey was, what he called for and why that video was promoted by Russian users. The situation was aggravated by a poor work of online translators, some of which translated the Russian title of the video "Осёл за Жириновского" (The Ass For Zhirinovsky) as "Zhirinovsky in the ass".
The video also has been featured on the 17 March in the comedy show "Yesterday Live" on Channel One, where it was used in a parody of American TV news: the fictional BBN News reported the situation in Russia in a satirically biased way, including making a claim that Russians had problems with shortages of gasoline and that's why some people had to abandon cars and to resort to other ways of transportation - in which moment Zhirinovsky is shown beating his donkey.
References
- ^ History of Presidential Elections in Russia: Infographics RIAN
- Timothy Colton, Yeltsin: A Life (2011), p. 282; Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation, p. 327; The troubled birth of Russian democracy: parties, personalities, and programs. p. 244.
- Russian Political Parties Directory (1999), p. 65.
- Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, Right-wing extremism in the twenty-first century (2003). Psychology Press: p. x.
- ^ Hans-Georg Betz, Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe (1994). Palgrave Macmillan: p. 23.
- Stephen E. Hanson, Post-Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-Soviet Russia (2011). Cambridge University Press.
- John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (2011). Princeton University Press, p. 167.
- ^ Profiles of Russia's 2012 presidential election candidates BBC
- ЛДПР – придаток «Единой России»? (LDPR – an appendix of United Russia?) kursk-izvestia.ru
- Жириновский устроил скандал на дебатах с Пугачевой Lenta.ru
- Воплощение идеи "Жириновский, или будет хуже": бичевание осла (ВИДЕО) newsru.com
- ^ The election campaign video "Тройка" ("Troika"). Official site of the LDPR.
- Zhirinovsky Explains why He Swatted Ass RIAN 07 February 2012
- ^ Жириновский ответил за осла (ВИДЕО)
- Russian troika at zooclub.ru
- Jingle bells at damascus.ru
- Василий Макарович Шукшин
- Жириновский признался, что любит животных regnum.ru
- ТВ не место для дебатов Kommersant
- Как зовут осла Жириновского
- ^ Владимир Жириновский рассказал про осла Прошку vokrug.tv
- Zhirinovsky: Russia's political eccentric BBC
- ^ WSPA и PETA обвинили Жириновского в жестоком обращении с ослом
- Владелец фермы «Чудо-ослик» подал в суд на Жириновского Rambler.ru
- Осёл За Жириновского
- ^ "Осла Жириновского не поняли в Youtube". PubliCiti.ru. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- Yesterday Live: Выпуск от 17 марта Channel One official site