People have been sending me video of Sarah Palin's recent Iran rally, which is somehow even more bizarre and incoherent than her usual speechmaking, because of a particularly weird moment where she drops some Russian on the crowd:
So up there in Alaska, across the way, Russia...You know there is a name for this taking advantage of America. There is a Russian name for that. And it is called 'fortochka.' And that means Obama's window of opportunity.
This seemed highly unlikely to me. As a number of commenters in that diary (correctly) pointed out, a
fortochka is a small, hinged section of window, usually near the top of the pane, that can open separately, which is often necessary for ventilation during the winter. But it seemed odd that this would be an actual expression in the way she presented it, right?
Of course it isn't. But there is a weird story here.
Anyone who bothered to google it in the original probably came away stymied, but there is actually a Russian source for this. It comes from an August 2014 article by Aleksandr Zavorotny in Novaya Pressa, and it's (as far as I can tell) the only time the expression was ever used in this way. Zavorotny argues that Obama is a more pliable president, and thus Moscow and Tehran should use this opportunity to resist American influence before the next, possibly more hard-lined president takes office. Here's a sample (translation mine):
The phrase "Obama's fortochka," meaning the existing window of opportunity, reflects the belief that the situation will be more difficult with the next US president.
Thus, Moscow and Tehran could use the "fortochka" to achieve a number of goals.
In everyday speak,
fortochka is often used to mean a narrow window (of opportunity), so
that part doesn't seem strange. But this article is literally the only time I could find the word used in this specific way: as far as I can tell, no other Russian speakers seem to have latched onto this expression for exploiting Obama, as Palin understood it. What an awfully strange, isolated example to have migrated to Palin's word salad bar...
Here's the English-language intermediary: a December editorial in the NY Post by Amir Taheri, "An Iran-Russia Axis." Taheri argues that Obama is a more pliable president, and thus Moscow and Tehran might use this opportunity to resist American influence before the next, possibly more hard-lined president takes office. Here's a sample:
The phrase “fortochka Obama,” meaning “the Obama window of opportunity,” indicates the belief that America’s next president might not be as pliable as the current one.
Thus, Tehran and Moscow are trying to use the “fortochka Obama” to achieve a number of goals.
Oh, hey - did you notice something interesting? Because I sure did! Taheri took Zavorotny's article nearly verbatim (not just these lines: the
entire article!) Some of the changes are merely adjustments in translation, and others - like changing Zavorotny's positive terms to negative ones - maintain the original structure and meaning of the piece in order to present it as a warning to American readers. As for Taheri, who I was unfamiliar with until today, he is apparently a writer
not free from controversy, and as a very passionate opponent of negotiation with Iran, he must have seen Zavorotny's article as evidence of something nefarious. Needless to say, Zavorotny is hardly a well-known figure, and
Novaya Pressa is literally just a blog with a half-dozen writers. Everything here is built on sand.
Anyway, just to show those excerpts above aren't a fluke, here's the opening of each article:
[original] What do two countries with a couple of centuries of enmity between them do when they seek to change the discourse? Find a common enemy - real or imagined. For Russia and Iran, traditionally at odds with each other, the common enemy, according to the political circles of Moscow and Tehran, is the United States.
[Taheri] What do two nations with a history of over 200 years of enmity and war do when they seek a change of discourse? Find a common enemy — real or imagined. For Russia and Iran, traditional foes since the 18th century, that common enemy is the United States, according to political circles in Moscow and Tehran.
And so on. Naturally there's no attribution or indication that this is not Taheri's original work. I sent an email to the NY Post article earlier this morning, and I'll update if I hear back.
In the meantime, we now have a plausible path for a thoroughly implausible expression: a Russian blogger -> an unscrupulous plagiarist -> an American mangler-of-all-things-verbal.
It's a thing of beauty, ain't it?