My favorite angry phrase in Russian is «Какого дьявола?» (kakova dyavola)
or “What the devil?”
My parents didn’t teach me any swears in Russian when I was growing up, naturally, so this and «Черт» (chort) which means “damn”, was all I had to shout whenever I burned my hand or stubbed my toe
Although these seem pretty tame, they had a lot of power
The Russian people I grew up around never used any real Russian swears, so even a simple «Черт» slipping out when I played a wrong chord would make
my piano teacher’s jaw hit the floor.
«Какого дьявола» was still my favorite, though.
It’s “What the devil”, but it was more often used as “Why the devil”
«Какого дьявола ты бьешь своего брата?» (Kakova dyavola ti byosh cvayivo brata)
“Why the devil are you hitting your brother?”
«Какого дьявола ты ешь сахар из сахарницы?» (Kakova dyavola ti yesh sahar iz saharnitsi)
“Why the devil are you eating sugar out of the sugar bowl?”
Whenever I’d hear «Какого дьявола», it felt less like someone asking why I was doing something, and more like someone asking “What gives you the right?”
“What gives you the right to hit your brother?”
“What gives you the right to eat sugar out of the sugar bowl?”
What did give me the right?
To hurt someone, to break the rules
Why the devil was I doing these things?
Why, the devil can do whatever he wants
That’s another thing I learned from the Russians around me.
The devil doesn’t need to ask permission to hurt people or to break the rules
Hell, it’s part of what makes him the devil.
The devil doesn’t say “What can I do for you?”
He says “You, do this for me.”
The devil doesn’t say “Come in!”
He says “You’re not allowed to leave.”
The devil will never say «Как древний правитель, как человек с великой силой и сердцем, чем я могу служить вам?» (Kak drevni pravitel, kak chelovek s veliki sila i sertsam, chem ya magu sluzhits vam?)
“As a long-time ruler, as a person with great power and a heart, how may I serve you?”
The devil serves no one
He takes
And he takes
And he takes
And he gave himself the right
I learned that from the Russians around me
I learned that the devil wasn’t in Hell
He was here, in our world
Because Hell wasn’t enough for him
It wasn’t enough to trap and torment the people already under his rule
He wants to swallow every bit of our planet whole
And I sit here, listening to angels on high sighing about how much they despise the man in red
When they have never once had to think about the safety of their family because of him
And God will sit here
Promising his children that the devil will pay for his misdeeds
All while cowering, waiting, hoping
That the devil will leave him for last
Because he knows, as well as I
That he will always take the vulnerable first
That without intervention, the raids will never stop
And the cries we ignore now will one day be our own
The devil never needed permission to show off his power
I never needed Russian curses to show off my anger
Because my parents taught me that the words I had were enough
Какого дьявола are you watching from the sidelines as homes are destroyed?
Какого дьявола are you making light of a situation you’re not even part of?
Какого дьявола did you ever turn the Devil into a joke?
Was it funny to laugh at the Devil and his demons in shows and in films
To such a degree that we time and time forget what he is capable of?
The Devil isn’t in your TV screen
The Devil is here
And I learned from the Russians around me
To be grateful
That if it weren’t for my family
I would never have been given the right
To live out of his grasp