“Strongly indeed do Russian people express themselves! And if they bestow a particular epithet on someone, it will become part of his lineage and posterity, he will drag it around him into his place of work, and into his retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth. And however cunningly he may later contrive to ennoble his nickname, however he may compel the fraternity of scribblers, for monetary recompense, to derive it from an ancient princely family, nothing will avail; of its own the nickname will croak forth at the top of its crow’s voice and clearly proclaim the nest from which the bird has flown.”
Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.
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