Kaschenism

Kaschenism is a specific style of conversation in forums, blogs, Fido echos, etc. used by some people in Russian FidoNet and Internet. Its main feature is provocativeness and mockery while being formally polite. Historically, Kaschenist style uses many words and idioms of Jewish origin, and in conversations Kashenists often pretend to be Jews, that's because it makes anti-Semites annoyed and angry, and makes other people make excuses and prove that they are not anti-Semites. Also it is typical for Kaschenist style to use medical terms, especially from psychiatry, that's because Kaschenists consider themselves jocularly as "network psychiatrists", and imitate either medical staff or, on the contrary, patients of a mental hospital.The word Kaschenism also denotes a philosophy of people who use Kaschenist style in electronic conversations.

Ethymology

The word "Kaschenism" comes from a name of Kaschenko mental hospital [Named so from 1922 to 1994, from 1994 - Alexeeva] , which name has become an idiom in Russian (similarly with Bedlam in English). This hospital, in turn, was named after a great Russian psychiatrist Petr Petrovich Kaschenko. Kashenists consider in game Petr Petrovich as their spiritual patron.

Origin

Kashenism originated as a Fidonet echo conference SU.KASCHENKO.LOCAL(SKL) created by Vladimir "MedBrat" [МедБрат in Russian. Медбрат means "nurse boy"; a tradition to have nicknames named after medical staff is very typical for early Kaschenists.] Timofeev in 1998.

In first half of 2000-s SKL (and Russian FidoNet in general) slowly became deserted, and in 2005 MedBrat led residual Kashenists away from SKL to Internet forum kaschenko.ru; SKL worked then for a while but now it is almost dead.

Ideology and phylosophy

The basics of an ideology of a Kaschenism are told in a text called "Kaschenesis" [ [http://www.kaschenko.ru/ShMuZ/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=960 See here] (Russian); the name of the text is a parody on "Catechesis", but not on a catholic one but rather on an anti-Semitic Soviet book called "А Catechesis of a Jew living in USSR"] .

Also, there is a digest of the Kashenist ideology formulated in three phrases, a kind of Kaschenists motto; the phrases are:
* Rigorous observance of mutually exclusive paragraphs.
* Brutal political correctness.
* Total schizophasia.

The same in Russian, (as it is written in an upper part of every page of kaschenko.ru):
* Неукоснительное соблюдение взаимоисключающих параграфов.
* Брутальная поллитркорректность.
* Тотальная шизофазия.

Since those slogans written in Russian contain 8 words containing 99 letters total, Kaschenists often abbreviate their motto as 8/99, and use such an abbreviation as a greeting (which is in turn a mockery on a Nazi greeting 14/88).

Influence

The influence of Kaschenism upon Russian Internet is quite significant, especially the influence of Kaschenist slang which is now known and is sometimes used by a big part of Russian-speaking Internet users, though they never were Kashenists themselves. Also, Kaschenists, who appeared earlier than the well-known "padonki" subculture, contributed much to padonki slang, and even many of early "padonki" were former Kaschenists [See, for example, [http://old.russ.ru//culture/network/20050523.html an article on kaschenists and padonki by Pavel Protasov] (Russian)] .

References

External links

* [http://www.kaschenko.ru The Kaschenists main forum]
* [http://kaschepuzia.kaschenko.ru Kaschepuzia: the encyclopedia of Kaschenism] ru icon
* [http://groups.google.com/group/fido7.su.kaschenko.local/topics SU.KASCHENKO.LOCAL on Google groups]