Like it or not, the Russian-speaking world has a reputation for violence. But how justified is it? Well, there was the Bolshevik revolution - a Sunday parade in comparison to its French precursor over a century earlier. How about WW II? Hitler started that one. And the Gulags? If Solzhenitsyn had been tried for treason in the US he would have been executed along with the Rosenburgs. Yes, we all remember Afghanistan ... and Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan again.
Of course, there is the stereotypical Russian-speaking gangster. He is a stock character in Hollywood action films, although no one seems to ask how he evolved so quickly from the image of the brainwashed Socialist automaton or the hopelessly oppressed peasant that we in the West were presented with during the Cold War. Let's see if the language offers us any clues.
The all-around generic word for violent action in Russian is "bit" [бить]. It sounds just like its English equivalent, "beat," and in fact both words share a common ancestor in the long-dead Proto-Indo-European language, which is also the great-great-granddaddy of tongues like Hindi, Iranian, German, Italian and Greek.
Before going any further, it should be pointed out that the other English word of the same sound "Beet," which refers to
a red root popular among the East Slavs, goes by a completely different name in Russian: svyokla [свекла].
The "bit" in question in this article means the delivery of a blow, but not just from fist to face. In Russian, the sun can "bit" in one's eyes, just as water can "bit" fast from a faucet. If a person is doing the beating, he can "bitsya" [биться] (wrack his brains) over a difficult problem, direct the impact against
a football (zabit" gol") [забить гол] or even from the end of
a cue in billiards. Russians beat with force and often for fun, but not necessarily with the intention of hurting anyone.
We English-speakers are also passionate about our beating, but that passion can be differently expressed. As in Russian, our hearts beat romantically like drums or we beat each other violently and sometimes for sado-masochistic pleasure: The phrase "Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks" wouldn't translate well into Russian.
Thus, one sort of beating is violent and the other, e.g. "the beat," is at once funky, new-age, and more than likely tied to music or the culture that surrounds it. Ironically the word "beatnik" almost sounds like it's of Russian origin, but it's not.
All this having been said, Russian and English speakers say "bit" or "beat" when they mean hitting someone or something. The variations, as one might expect, are numerous. Russians usually do their beating above the shoulders: "bit' mordu" [бить морду] (to beat someone's snout), "bit pachku" [бить пачку] (literally, to beat someone's pack) and "bit repu" [бить репу] (to beat someone's turnip) - all of which refer to punches to the face.
We English speakers, at least Americans, hit below the belt, preferring to beat someone's "ass," "butt" or "rear end." In reality, neither side adheres to World Boxing Federation rules.
We get even more excited about kicking others' backsides, sometimes going so far as to kick the living (bleep) out of someone. Russians also like to use their feet, and although they have a special word (pinat) [пинать], like we do, they are more likely to simply say "bit kogo-to nogami" [бить кого-то ногами] or literally "to beat someone with your feet." If this sounds strange, keep in mind that Russian usually makes no distinction between feet and legs, so one could translate the above expression as "beat someone with your legs," without any reference to Thai massages or handicapped pirates.
Getting back to our post-Soviet gangster - let's face it - he probably does more killing than beating. But, as you might have learned from earlier In A Word columns, Russians prefer to develop the same word root rather than thinking up a new word. Thus, "bit" becomes "ubit" [убить] (to kill). For the etymologically inclined, there is also "pobit" [побить] (to work someone over), "razbit" [разбить] (to smash to pieces) and "izbit," [избить] which comes pretty close to the American "to beat someone up."
When we start to get into Russian slang for ending someone's life, the roots go out the window and things get graphic. The favorite, at least in films, is "zamochit," [замочить] which literally means to wet someone. There is also the laconic "konchat" [кончать] (to finish someone), the polite "ubrat" [убрать] or "take someone out" and the favorite among Ukrainian lawmakers "likvidirovat" [ликвидировать] or "liquidate." If the attempt is unsuccessful, one eloquently talks of a "pokusheniye" [покушение] or "an attempt" on another's life.
Interestingly, when it comes to ending someone's life, the Russian language seems to have a moral gap. In English, we make a clear distinction between killing and murder; however, Russian does not. It would seem that in English one can kill both morally and legally (as during a war or in self-defense) without being guilty of murder. In Russian, killing is killing - end of story. However, always receptive to the next Western trend, Russian was quick to adopt the word "killer" from English after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The word now translates as "hit man," as compared to a simple "ubitsya," [убийца] which can translate as killer or murderer.
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