Fofudja - Main Features and Usage

Main Features and Usage

The main symbol of this phenomenon is the fofudja itself. In the view of some observers the name was probably selected because of a number of factors: because of its obscurity, because it sounds similar to a piece of clothing called fufaika, and also due to its Byzantine origin and orthodox symbolism. 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 ethnicities: Жидобандеровцьі (Zhidobanderovtsy, Kike-Banderites).

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 a fofudja at school, 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. Also, a digraph "ьі" is used for the Cyrillic letter "ы" absent in the Ukrainian alphabet. 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 Kike-Banderites pulled with pliers all the keys with Russian characters out of the keyboard and burned them. You can't even imagine all the suffering they put the Russophones 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" ("for how long" "until when", an archaic question word), 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. The phenomenon of the catchphrase Dokole (Доколє) is believed to be in an attempt to exploit the language of the Orthodox and Russian nationalist zealots that have become popular in Russia.