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Fofudja - is a meme in the Ukrainian segment of the Live Journal. While its name denotes a piece of religious clothing, it has been used lately to make fun of Russian imperialism, xenophobia, antisemitism and religious intolerance. Members of the Fofudja community pretend to be members of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine oppressed by Ukrainians and Jews and express for comic effect views similar to those of extreme Russian nationalism.

Origins of the term

The name of this Internet phenomenon originates from the name of an ancient and precious oriental cloth for religious ceremonies - fofudja (Template:Lang-el) (Template:Lang-ru). It was first mentioned in the Radziwiłł Chronicle in the 13th century but as such it remained unknown to the general public of Ukraine and Russia. In fact, the word itself was quite obscure and was not even included into several editions of orthographic dictionaries either in Ukraine or Russia.

Origins in Live Journal

The word "fofudja" appeared in a Live Journal community quite recently. However, the theme of this phenomenon can be traced back to another widely popular Ukrainian Internet creation - a novel "The City of Lvov". This satirical Internet novel written by "Professor" Ivan Denikin (a pen name of an unknown joker) deals with a few Russians travelling to Lviv and on their way encountering "unspeakable suffering" of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine brought on by Ukrainization. The description of the events was quite satirical and grotesque and this phenomenon of presenting the distorted picture of the world through the eyes of Russian nationalists and Orthodox zealots caught on with the wider public and when LJ Fofudja was launched on March 12, 2006, its popularity grew exponentially.

Main Features and Usage

The two symbols of the fofudja journal are fofudja itself and the catchphrase from the Church Slavonic: Доколє? ("how long?" or, literally, "until what time?")

Members of the community sarcastically position themselves as semi-underground Russian minority in present-day Ukraine, proud Russian patriots and devout Orthodox Christians. They also pretend to be fiercely chauvinistic with well defined xenophobic and antisemitic views. As such, the generally accepted view of the community is that they are living on eternal Russian lands, speak the only acceptable and "normal" Russian language and patiently await imminent liberation from Ukrainian and Jewish oppression. The latter are termed with one derogatory word for both nations: Жидобандеровцьі (Zhidobanderovtsy).

Fofudja as a piece of religious clothing is meant to be a symbol of Russian Orthodoxy and of Russian culture. Participants believe that they will be persecuted by Ukrainian authorities for wearing it in public as a piece of national Russian costume. In fact, the leader of Ukrainian communists Petro Symonenko was asked in an Internet conference the following question:

"Hello, I am from Kherson oblast and I am an ethnic Russian. My daughter was prohibited from wearing in school a fofudja , a symbol of Russian culture - on the grounds that the state language is Ukrainian. I just wanted to ask you, Peter Nikolayevich, for how long ?

Unsuspecting of being a victim of a practical joke by members of the fofudja community and willing to profit on the sensitive inter-ethnic question Mr. Symonenko promised to "look into it".

One other particular feature of this Internet phenomenon is the peculiar language use. While only Russian is being used (as all other languages are deemed to be substandard) it is spelled for added comic effect with Ukrainian letters. One of the anonymous contributors at a site spawned off by this phenomenon explained it in the following manner:

"Please forgive me for using these disgusting Little Russian (I would even call them Micro Russian) letters, but evil Jews-Ukrainians pulled with pliers all the Russian letters out of the keyboard and burned them. You can't even imagine all the suffering they put us through!"

Trying to express their admiration for the Imperial Russia some usage of the old style Cyrillic has also been noted. The symbol of "fofudja", the catchphrase "доколє" (how long), the Russian-Ukrainian letter mix and the Imperial Cyrillic - these are the distinctive features of this Internet phenomenon that spread beyond the Live Journal blog and into the wider community in Ukraine. It is becoming commonly used in everyday speech in Ukraine, on numerous Internet blog sites and has been noted lately in print as well.

Examples of Usage

The use of numerous abbreviations is also one of the characteristic features of the Fofudja community:

• І.З.Т. — ізвінітє за тавтологію (Pardon my tautology). "істінно русскій чілавєк" (І.З.Т.) -"true Russian person" - (pardon obvious tautology).

• В.В.П. — Вождь Всєх Патріотовъ (Leader of all Patriots) - this acronym also stands for the initials of the Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

• І.З.І.Ж.Б.К. — ізвінітє за іспользованіє жидобандеровской клавіатурьі (Please excuse the use of Jewish-Ukrainian keyboard).

Significance

Many believe this original Ukrainian creation to be the means to combat prejudice and xenophobia exhibited towards Ukrainians in modern Russia and to mock Russian nationalists within Ukraine proper. By adopting the language and many of the ideas of Russian nationalists and comically exaggerating them members of the fofudja community thus make an effort to repudiate them.

See also

• Padonki
• Preved
• Udaff

Sources

• Fofudja Live Journal (Rus.)
• "Under the Omophorion of St. Fofudja" (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia) (Ukr./Rus.)
• "Fofudja Conqures Ukrainian Cyberspace" (Nasha Nyva) (Belarus.)
• Za-nashe-delo LJ community (Rus.)
• Novel: The City of Lvov (Rus.)
• The Road of Putinism (newspaper) (Rus.)
• Fofudja - Ukrainian answer to Moscow's "Preved". (Internet Reporter) (Ukr.)
• "Daddy, daddy, our nets have pulled out a Fofudja!" (Izvestia)(Rus.)
• One of the Worst Kind of Filth That Hangs Over the Russian Movement is Probably the Fofudja (Na Zlobu) (Rus.)

ru-sib:Фофудья

• Internet memes
• Ukrainian culture