# Poshlost

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***Poshlost*** or ***poshlost'*** (Rus: по́шлость) is a pejorative Russian word for [amorality](/source/Amorality), [vulgarity](/source/Vulgarity), a lack of [originality](/source/Originality), and/or [bad taste](/source/Kitsch). It has been cited as an example of a so-called [untranslatable](/source/Untranslatability) word, because there is no exact single-word English equivalent. It carries much cultural baggage in [Russia](/source/Russia) and has been discussed at length by various writers.[1]

It is derived from the adjective *póshlyy* ([пошлый](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%BB%D1%8B%D0%B9)), which may describe a negative human character trait, a manmade object, or an idea.

## Description

[Svetlana Boym](/source/Svetlana_Boym)[2] defines *poshlost'* as "[obscenity](/source/Obscenity) and bad taste". She says:[3]

*Poshlost'* is the Russian version of banality, with a characteristic national flavoring of metaphysics and high morality, and a peculiar conjunction of the sexual and the spiritual. This one word encompasses triviality, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, and a lack of spirituality. The war against *poshlost'* was a cultural obsession of the Russian and Soviet intelligentsia from the 1860s to 1960s.

It has also been defined as "petty evil or self-satisfied [vulgarity](/source/Vulgarity)".[4]

In his novels, [Turgenev](/source/Ivan_Turgenev) "tried to develop a heroic figure who could, with the verve and abandon of a [Don Quixote](/source/Don_Quixote), grapple with the problems of Russian society, who could once and for all overcome '*poshlost*', the complacent mediocrity and moral degeneration of his environment".[5] [Dostoevsky](/source/Fyodor_Dostoevsky) applied the word to the [Devil](/source/Satan); [Solzhenitsyn](/source/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn), to Western-influenced young people.[3]

[D. S. Mirsky](/source/D._S._Mirsky) was an early user of the word in English in writing about Gogol; he defined it as "'self-satisfied inferiority,' moral and spiritual".[6]

Another literary treatment is [Fyodor Sologub](/source/Fyodor_Sologub)'s novel *[The Petty Demon](/source/Fyodor_Sologub#The_Petty_Demon)*. It tells the story of a provincial schoolteacher, Peredonov, notable for his complete lack of redeeming human qualities. [James H. Billington](/source/James_H._Billington)[7] said of it:

The book puts on display a [Freudian](/source/Freudian) treasure chest of perversions with subtlety and credibility. The name of the novel's hero, Peredonov, became a symbol of calculating [concupiscence](/source/Concupiscence) for an entire generation... [Peredonov] seeks not the ideal world but the world of petty venality and sensualism, *poshlost'*. He torments his students, derives erotic satisfaction from watching them kneel to pray, and systematically befouls his apartment before leaving it as part of his generalized spite against the universe.

### Nabokov

[Vladimir Nabokov](/source/Vladimir_Nabokov) made the term more widely known in his book on Gogol, where he romanized it as "*poshlust*" (punningly: "[posh](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/posh)" + "[lust](/source/Lust)"). *Poshlust*, Nabokov explained, "is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. A list of literary characters personifying *poshlust* will include... Polonius and the royal pair in *[Hamlet](/source/Hamlet)*, Rodolphe and Homais from *[Madame Bovary](/source/Madame_Bovary)*, Laevsky in [Chekhov](/source/Anton_Chekhov)'s 'The Duel', [Joyce](/source/James_Joyce)'s [Marion \[Molly\] Bloom](/source/Molly_Bloom), young Bloch in *[Search of Lost Time](/source/In_Search_of_Lost_Time)*, [Maupassant](/source/Guy_de_Maupassant)'s '[Bel Ami](/source/Bel_Ami)', [Anna Karenina](/source/Anna_Karenina)'s husband, and Berg in *[War and Peace](/source/War_and_Peace)*".[8] Nabokov also listed:[9]

Corny trash, vulgar clichés, [Philistinism](/source/Philistinism) in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know.

In a *[New York Times](/source/New_York_Times)* piece about [Fyodor Dostoevsky](/source/Fyodor_Dostoevsky), whom he considered an exemplar of *poshlost*, Nabokov further characterized it as being "cheap," "sham," "smutty," "highfalutin," and "in bad taste."[10]

Nabokov often targeted *poshlost* in his own work; the Alexandrov definition above of "petty evil or self-satisfied vulgarity" refers to the character of M'sieur Pierre in Nabokov's *[Invitation to a Beheading](/source/Invitation_to_a_Beheading)*.

## See also

- [Kitsch](/source/Kitsch)
- [Middlebrow](/source/Middlebrow)

## References

1. Mikheev, Alexey (29 May 2014). ["A question of taste: The untranslatable word 'poshlost'"](http://rbth.com/blogs/2014/05/29/a_question_of_taste_the_untranslatable_word_poshlost_37047.html). *Russia Beyond The Headlines*. Retrieved 12 February 2016.

1. Boym 2001, p. 279.

1. Boym 1994, p. 41.

1. Alexandrov 1991, p. 106.

1. Lindstrom 1966, p. 149.

1. Mirsky 1927, p. 158.

1. Billington 1966, p. 494.

1. Nabokov 1944, p. 70.

1. Nabokov 1973.

1. ["Nabokov on Dostoyevsky"](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dostoyevsky.html). *The New York Times*. 23 August 1981. Retrieved 25 September 2025.

## Bibliography

- Alexandrov, Vladimir (1991). *Nabokov's Otherworld*. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06866-6.
- Billington, James H. (1966). [*The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture*](https://archive.org/details/iconaxeinterpret00bill). Alfred A. Knopf.
- Boym, Svetlana (1994). [*Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia*](https://books.google.com/books?id=B7_uBFThxD4C&pg=PA48). Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-14625-5. Retrieved 2007-12-27.
- Boym, Svetlana (2001). [*The Future of Nostalgia*](https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780465007073). Basic Books. p. [279](https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780465007073/page/279). ISBN 0-465-00707-4. Retrieved 2012-11-26.
- Davydov, Sergej (1995). "Poshlost'". *The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov*. Alexandrov, V (ed.). Routledge. pp. 628–32. ISBN 0-8153-0354-8.
- Lindstrom, Thais (1966). *A Concise History of Russian Literature. Volume I: From the Beginnings to Chekhov*. New York: New York University Press. LCCN 66-22218.
- Mirsky, D. S. (1927). [*A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900*](https://books.google.com/books?id=Pys__ZDJN6QC&pg=PA158). 1999 ed. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-1679-0. Retrieved 2007-12-27.
- Nabokov, Vladimir (1944). [*Nikolai Gogol*](https://books.google.com/books?id=GwfplQ3OK8EC&pg=PA70). New Directions. ISBN 9780811201209. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
- Nabokov, Vladimir (1973). *Strong Opinions*. McGraw-Hill. p. 100. The original interview, with Herbert Gold in the October 1967 issue of the *[Paris Review](/source/Paris_Review)*, is [available on line](http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov), and an extract is available in a *[Time](/source/Time_magazine)* [article](https://web.archive.org/web/20080127072116/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,712044,00.html) (Dec. 1, 1967) about the interview.
- Taruskin, Richard (2009). *On Russian Music*. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24979-0.

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