Vatnik

This article is about the political pejorative. For the word's original meaning, see Telogreika.

Activists in Ukraine using the image of "Vatnik" in the action of "Boycott Russian Films" campaign

Vatnik (Russian: ватник, pronounced [ˈvatʲnʲɪk]) is a political pejorative[1][2] used in Russia and other post-Soviet states for steadfast jingoistic followers of propaganda from the Russian government.[3]

The use of the word originates from an Internet meme first spread by Anton Chadskiy on VKontakte in 2011, and later used in Russia, Ukraine, then in other post-Soviet states. Its meaning refers to the original cartoon, which depicts a character made from the material of a padded cotton wool (Russian: ва́та, IPA: [ˈvatə]) jacket (vatnik in Russian) and bearing a black eye, which is used to disparage someone as a blindly patriotic and unintelligent jingoist who pushes the conventional views presented in Russian government media as well as those of Russian web brigades.[4][5] The name "Vatnik" derives from the cotton wool jacket (Telogreika) that Chadskiy's cartoon character in the meme is made from.

  1. ^ Fialkova, Larisa; Yelenevskaia, Maria (14 April 2016). "The Crisis in Ukraine and the Split of Identity in the Russian-speaking World". Folklorica. 19. doi:10.17161/folklorica.v19i1.5721. ISSN 1920-0242. Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  2. ^ Devlin, Anne Marie (25 November 2016). "Lard-eaters, gay-ropeans, sheeple and prepositions: lexical and syntactic devices employed to position the other in Russian online political forums". Russian Journal of Communication. 9 (1): 53–70. doi:10.1080/19409419.2016.1219642. hdl:10468/4415. ISSN 1940-9419. S2CID 151382929.
  3. ^ Jim Kovpak (March 2015). "Why the West can't Understand Russia". Russia! magazine. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  4. ^ Shaun Walker (2 June 2016). "Ukraine bans Russian journalists accused of 'stirring hatred'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  5. ^ Kolya Camouflage (27 May 2015). ""Tesak's daughter" moved to Ukraine to organize "safari" hunting on gay people". upogau.org. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2017.