Russian Jokes

Much of the humor value in Russian jokes is critically dependent on untranslatable features of the Russian language (linguistic puns, wordplay, and Russian's vocabulary of foul language). 


"SS men blocked all exits from the building. "Idiots," Stierlitz thought and went out through the entrance." 

Russians specialize in a type of ethnic humor that is both anti-disparaging and self-glorifying simultaneously, whereas American jokes are highly cyclical.

Utilizing themselves as part of the superiority claim of the originating script, Russians, much like their British, German, and French neighbors ...naturally preside over all. 

...the British are empire-builders, the Germans are pedantic and methodical, the French are womanizers, the Americans are profit-oriented businessmen, the Russians have first claim to all things and phenomena...

EXAMPLE

Students of different nationalities were asked to write an essay about elephants. The Englishman wrote an essay entitled, "The role of the elephant in the building of the British Empire." 

The German wrote "the historical survey of the elephant as a species from its beginnings to the present." 

The French essay was called "The elephant and the woman." 

The American student turned in "On cost-efficient uses of the elephant." 

The Jewish student's theme was "The elephant and anti-Semitism." 

And the Russian author entitled his composition "The Soviet Union as the Fatherland of the elephant".

In Russia, we Russian. 

Nuff said.