Russia and the Color Yellow
January 27, 2013 2:09 PM Subscribe
What does the Russian mind associate with the color yellow?
How did Желтый Дом come to be a name for a mental asylum?
Why did exiles in Siberia wear grey clothes with a yellow lozenge on the back?
How did Желтый Дом come to be a name for a mental asylum?
Why did exiles in Siberia wear grey clothes with a yellow lozenge on the back?
Prostitutes had special ID documents, called "yellow tickets", in Czarist times. But when you say exiles, do you mean prisoners in the Gulags?
posted by Ideefixe at 2:29 PM on January 27, 2013
posted by Ideefixe at 2:29 PM on January 27, 2013
Just confirming what ttyn wrote: there's a mild superstition about giving someone a bouquet of yellow flowers. There is a 90s song called Yellow Tulips: "Желтые тюльпаны, вестники разлуки" — "Yellow tulips, harbingers of parting." Nothing else comes to mind. Perhaps "yellow house" is a kind of synecdoche, like "Bedlam"? It's certainly not a common term for mental institutions more generally.
posted by Nomyte at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2013
posted by Nomyte at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2013
Best answer: I can't answer what the Russian mind associates with the color yellow. But in regards to your question about the term "желтый дом", according to the great Vladimir Dal, it originated as a reference to the yellow paint of the Obukhovskaya hospital in St. Petersburg, which housed one of the first psychiatric wards in Russia. If you can read Russian, there's a discussion about it here on gramota, and the Russian Wikipedia article on Obukhovskaya hospital mentions literary references to it as a psychiatric ward.
posted by pravit at 2:36 PM on January 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by pravit at 2:36 PM on January 27, 2013 [3 favorites]
In Polish, "having yellow papers" refers to mentally ill people, and as far as I know, it's because the documentation of their release from the mental hospital was printed on yellow-colored paper.
Could be an urban legend, though; I'm curious about whether it's connected with the Russian "yellow houses".
posted by Ender's Friend at 3:58 PM on January 27, 2013
Could be an urban legend, though; I'm curious about whether it's connected with the Russian "yellow houses".
posted by Ender's Friend at 3:58 PM on January 27, 2013
I wish I could be more specific but in English we discussed the symbolism of yellow in Crime and Punishment, so maybe you could investigate commentary on that?
posted by brilliantine at 8:10 PM on January 27, 2013
posted by brilliantine at 8:10 PM on January 27, 2013
In Chinese calling something yellow means pornographic or erotic. Perhaps there is some crossover with Siberia?
posted by dave99 at 9:57 PM on January 27, 2013
posted by dave99 at 9:57 PM on January 27, 2013
Best answer: My Russian friend says this:
the first psychiatric hospital in the russian empire was yellow, by coincidence. this is why "yellow house" is a euphemism for 'psychiatric hospital,' although it wasn't used much by my generation (i'm 34.) Also, there was a 'meme' of sorts at the time of Dostoyevski (he wrote about it,) associating the color yellow with illness in general, but i don't recall that used _ever,_ by anyone who was still alive by the time i formed my first memories.
http://forum.gramota.ru/forum/read.php?f=26&i=13895&t=13895
big discussion on the subject. in russian only, unfortunately.
i have no idea about the grey suits with yellow...lozenges? is that really the word this person intended to use? hmm.
hope this helps.
posted by bilabial at 4:28 PM on January 28, 2013
the first psychiatric hospital in the russian empire was yellow, by coincidence. this is why "yellow house" is a euphemism for 'psychiatric hospital,' although it wasn't used much by my generation (i'm 34.) Also, there was a 'meme' of sorts at the time of Dostoyevski (he wrote about it,) associating the color yellow with illness in general, but i don't recall that used _ever,_ by anyone who was still alive by the time i formed my first memories.
http://forum.gramota.ru/forum/read.php?f=26&i=13895&t=13895
big discussion on the subject. in russian only, unfortunately.
i have no idea about the grey suits with yellow...lozenges? is that really the word this person intended to use? hmm.
hope this helps.
posted by bilabial at 4:28 PM on January 28, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ttyn at 2:20 PM on January 27, 2013