Ivan Enraged

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A Russian friend of mine told me that "Terrible" is a common, well nigh universal, mistranslation for the nickname of Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Russian: Иван Васильевич; 25 August 1530 – 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584).  He says that a closer translation would be "Enraged".

The English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word Грозный (grozny) in Ivan's nickname, but this is a somewhat archaic translation. The Russian word Грозный reflects the older English usage of terrible as in "inspiring fear or terror; dangerous; powerful" (i.e., similar to modern English terrifying). It does not convey the more modern connotations of English terrible such as "defective" or "evil". Vladimir Dal defines grozny specifically in archaic usage and as an epithet for tsars: "courageous, magnificent, magisterial and keeping enemies in fear, but people in obedience". Other translations have also been suggested by modern scholars, including formidable.

(source)

Adjective

гро́зный (gróznyj) (comparative (по)грозне́е or (по)грозне́й)

  1. severe, harsh, cruel
Synonyms: угрожа́ющий (ugrožájuščij), устраша́ющий (ustrašájuščij)

 

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ. Synchronically analyzable as гроза́ (grozá) +‎ -ный (-nyj).

(source)

 

Reconstruction: Proto-Slavic/grozьnъ

Etymology

From *groza +‎ *-ьnъ, speculated to be of onomatopaeic origin. Cognate with Lithuanian gražus (beautiful), Latvian grezns (splendid) and possibly akin to Ancient Greek γοργός (gorgós, terrifying), Irish garg (harsh, wild).

 

Adjective

*grozьnъ

  1. terrible, disgusting
  2. enormous

 

Derived terms

Descendants

(source)

Which is worse, "terrible" or "enraged"?

In my mind, I keep hearing French formidable, pronounced the French way, and with many of the French meanings attached.

 

Selected readings

 



27 Comments

  1. Arthur waldron said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 11:36 am

    We were told “the dread” by the late EL Keenan at Harvard. Best. Arthur

  2. languagehat said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 11:40 am

    "Enraged" is such a terrible attempt at translation I suspect your friend may have been pulling your leg. Yes, "formidable" or "awe-inspiring" would better render the Russian, but it's a pointless game: "Ivan the Terrible" is permanently attached to him in English. And since it's equally descriptive, I don't see that much is lost.

  3. Taylor, Philip said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 11:43 am

    « "The Russian word Грозный reflects the older English usage of 'terrible' as in "inspiring fear or terror" ». Well, despite being relatively young (in relation to the history of the word), that is exactly the meaning which I have always ascribed to the phrase in this context. It may be worth mentioning that this is also the first (and therefore primary) definition that the OED gives :

    1. Causing or fit to cause terror; inspiring great fear or dread. Also: awe-inspiring, awesome.

  4. ycx said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 11:43 am

    In German his epithet is "der Schreckliche", which is closer to the archaic English meaning of both "very bad" and "terrifying".

  5. Peter Taylor said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 11:56 am

    Could be worse. He could have become known to English-speakers as Ivan the Terrific.

  6. John Baker said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 12:04 pm

    People seem to get “terrible” when the Wizard called himself “Oz the Great and Terrible.”

  7. James Wimberley said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 1:37 pm

    Other words with specific negative primary meanings seem, like "terrible" to get a secondary generic use in conversation as "bad": ghastly, brutal, crazy, awful, horrible, rotten, scary, shitty, obscene …. They don't for all that lose their primary meaning. Maybe "awful" has.

    Harald Hardrada ("the hard") and Fulk Nerra ("the black") were other rulers you would not want to pick a fight with. Think what sort of men they were to stand out from the crowd for brutality in the 11th century.

  8. David L said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 1:51 pm

    courageous, magnificent, magisterial and keeping enemies in fear, but people in obedience

    Ivan the Total Boss

  9. Philip Anderson said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 2:42 pm

    As languagehat said, the epithet is now frozen in English; Ivan is forever terrible, just as Aethelred is forever unready. But while terrible is now ambiguous, unready was always a bad translation of ‘unraed’.

  10. profan said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 2:43 pm

    Chechnya's capital city is also called Grozny (the same Russian word as used to describe the Ivan). Not "terrible" or "enraged", but perhaps "stern", "stormy" and "thundering" (grozny is the adjective formed from the noun "groza"=thunderstorm

  11. David Arthur said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 4:12 pm

    I once saw it given as 'Ivan the Awesome', which brings a whole new set of problems.

  12. Dave said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 4:44 pm

    How about Ivan the Irritable?

  13. Grover Jones said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 4:59 pm

    Reminds me of the well-known 19th-century hymn "God the All-Terrible." Coincidentally enough, the most common tune attached to this hymn is titled "Russian Hymn."

    https://hymnary.org/hymn/TPH2018/page/830

  14. Chester Draws said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 6:23 pm

    This arises all the time, especially as — like terrible — a word has changed meaning.

    For example, Pedro the Cruel and William the Bastard.

  15. J.W. Brewer said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 8:43 pm

    I had thought the name of the capital of Chechnya must surely be some sort of coincidental "false friend," but the story seems to be that when the Russians first conquered that area they built a military outpost named Fort Terrible (or Fort Formidable, or what have you), which eventually generated the Russian name of the city that grew up around it. Apparently some Chechen folks think the city ought to have a Chechen name, but that hasn't officially happened yet.

  16. Anthony said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 9:15 pm

    From the Wikipedia:

    Terribilità, the modern Italian spelling, (or terribiltà, as Michelangelo's 16th century contemporaries tended to spell it) is a quality ascribed to his art that provokes terror, awe, or a sense of the sublime in the viewer. It is perhaps especially applied to his sculptures, such as his figures of David or in Moses.

  17. Victor Mair said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 9:36 pm

    AWE

    That word has already appropriately appeared half-a-dozen times in this thread. When I first encountered it in a history of religions course more than half a century ago, it was very difficult to wrap my head around.

    ——————————

    awe (n.)

    c. 1300, aue, "fear, terror, great reverence," earlier aghe, c. 1200, from a Scandinavian source, such as Old Norse agi "fright;" from Proto-Germanic *agiz- (source also of Old English ege "fear," Old High German agiso "fright, terror," Gothic agis "fear, anguish"), from PIE *agh-es- (source also of Greek akhos "pain, grief"), from root *agh- (1) "to be depressed, be afraid" (see ail).

    The current sense of "dread mixed with admiration or veneration" is due to biblical use with reference to the Supreme Being. To stand in awe (early 15c.) originally was simply to stand awe.

    Al engelond of him stod awe.

    ["The Lay of Havelok the Dane," c. 1300]

    Awe-inspiring is recorded from 1814.

    (from Etymonline)

  18. martin schwartz said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 9:38 pm

    @ David Arthur: The semantics of "awe", "awesome", and "awful"
    are quite relevant. And let's not forget the Czech Orientalist
    Hrozny (acute accent on y), who was awesome in his early career
    (when he was the first to translate a Hittite sentence and saw it is
    Indo-European) and awful in some speculations of his later career.
    Martin Schwartz

  19. Terry Hunt said,

    February 19, 2023 @ 10:22 pm

    I am reminded of the apocryphal story that, on viewing St. Paul's Cathedral for the first time, the King (or Queen) remarked to Sir Christopher Wren that it was "awful, pompous and artificial", all three being high praise in the meanings of the time.

    (There are a number of variant versions, and no agreement on which monarch it was, since the construction alone took 36 years. The remark seems to be a concatination of various separate adjectives used by monarchs on various occasions during the planning and construction.)

  20. Andreas Johansson said,

    February 20, 2023 @ 1:22 am

    Maybe they taught us a particularly conservative sort of English in school, but I've always taught of "inspiring fear" as the primary sense of "terrible".

    In Swedish he's Ivan den Förskräcklige, which is perhaps best Englished as Ivan the Dreadful.

  21. Keith said,

    February 20, 2023 @ 8:44 am

    In my schooling in the UK, there was never any suggestion that Ivan the Terrible was somewhat shabby, second rate or pathetic; the epithet "the Terrible" was always understood as being "fearsome, awesome".

    This word "terrible" is used in French to mean both "wonderful" and "underwhelming", and it is only the context in which it is used that can allow its proper interpretation.

    Sometimes it is used in a negative construction, in which case the word usually means "wonderful". For example, if somebody says "pas terrible, ce vin", then it means "this wine isn't great".

  22. Kate Bunting said,

    February 20, 2023 @ 9:30 am

    Grover Jones said:
    Reminds me of the well-known 19th-century hymn "God the All-Terrible." Coincidentally enough, the most common tune attached to this hymn is titled "Russian Hymn."

    That's because it was the Imperial national anthem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Tsar!. The 1972 BBC dramatisation of 'War and Peace' used it as its theme music (anachronistically, since it was apparently composed in 1833)

  23. Brett said,

    February 20, 2023 @ 11:07 pm

    @Taylor, Philip: I'm afraid you have misunderstood how the OED organizes its entries. As a comprehensive historical dictionary, it always lists senses of words in strictly chronological order; so listing the "causing or fit to cause terror…" sense of terrible first only means that that is the oldest attested sense—which we already knew.

    @Kate Bunting: A far more famous use of the "God Save the Tsar" tune to anachronistically represent Russia during the Napoleonic Wars is in the "1812 Overture." In particular, it plays during the famous cannonade near the end.

  24. ajay said,

    February 21, 2023 @ 4:28 am

    Vladimir Dal defines grozny specifically in archaic usage and as an epithet for tsars: "courageous, magnificent, magisterial and keeping enemies in fear, but people in obedience".

    Right, but "terrible" has an archaic use as an epithet (among other things) in English that means more or the same. No one misunderstands "terrible as an army with banners" or indeed "Oz the Great and Terrible" (as John Baker says) as meaning "not very good".

    Chester Draws: For example, Pedro the Cruel and William the Bastard.

    I don't think "bastard" has lost its meaning of "child of unmarried parents". "Game of Thrones" didn't need to explain that sense. Admittedly the other sense is commoner.
    As for Pedro the Cruel – wasn't that meant in the modern sense of "cruel"? I assumed it was. After all, he was.

  25. Taylor, Philip said,

    February 21, 2023 @ 8:50 am

    Brett — "I'm afraid you have misunderstood how the OED organizes its entries. As a comprehensive historical dictionary, it always lists senses of words in strictly chronological order". I stand corrected. Thank you for pointing this out.

  26. Bob Ladd said,

    February 21, 2023 @ 9:18 am

    On the general theme of the slippery semantics of such adjectives: There are nevertheless some fairly predictable pathways, notably positive-to-negative evaluation, and vice-versa. Specifically with regard to to derivatives of terror in English and derivatives of the Slavic loan groază in Romanian, the positive/negative pair in English terrific/terrible is almost perfectly matched by the Romanian pair grozav/groaznic. (And yes, Ivan the Terrible is Ivan cel Groaznic in Romanian.)

  27. Julian said,

    February 22, 2023 @ 9:35 pm

    @Victor
    'To stand in awe (early 15c.) originally was simply to stand awe.'
    Like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the scene where God appears to the knights, and they grovel so much that eventually he gets impatient and says, 'Stop grovelling!'

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