PSYchology

The book by Gasan Huseynov, Doctor of Science, a specialist in ancient and modern culture, is built like a dictionary: each word (often, in principle, untranslatable) is devoted to a separate and very capacious essay.

Some words are useless to look up in a dictionary. And to explain them, sometimes you need to tell a whole story. And even then it is not known — will it help? For example, the author of this book once did not succeed, despite all his academic regalia and the highest qualifications (Gasan Huseynov — Doctor of Science, Professor, specialist in ancient and modern culture). His friend, a German doctor, could not figure out why his patient, a Jewish emigrant from Donetsk, calls the ham (Schinken) the Talmud, and the headache — hemorrhoids. It sounds strange, but the answer is simple: «Talmud» in the meaning of «a very thick book» is translated into German as «ham», and the Russian «hemorrhoids» in the meaning of «difficulty» is not translated into any of the languages ​​​​at all. Behind each of these words and phrases is a whole system of connections, events, layers of the cultural unconscious. Language turns modernity into a cipher, the key to which is lost over time — if you do not fix this elusive, do not remove it from the language. This is exactly what Huseynov is doing. His book is built like a dictionary, where each word (roof, gueshniki, oncoming traffic, traffic jams …) is devoted to a separate essay — capacious, sharp, topical. And it turns out such a cut of the zero — seen through a magnifying glass of the tongue.

Case, 240 p.

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