Conversation

Speak more slowly.
Tell the truth.
If you do not know, say: “I don’t know.”
It is not true that you do not know.
You must have heard it.
You must have seen it.
You are lying.

An important milestone in the history of cultural anthropology—and indeed the heroic age of applied anthropology—came after Pearl Harbor, when American anthropologists, commissioned by the government, compiled and published a whole series of “Pocket Guide” booklets. These were intended to prepare American soldiers for the etiquette of the Pacific islands they were about to conquer and for contact with the local populations. Coincidentally, these very days see the publication of David H. Price’s excellent book on this turn in the history of anthropology (which, of course, I have not yet been able to read, and whose excellence I am attributing in advance solely on the basis of excerpts available online and the author’s earlier work). The book also discusses the dubious role played by social anthropologists in America’s current wars in the Islamic East.

Drop your weapon.
Hands up.
Lie down.
Do not speak.
Keep quiet.
If thou doest not keep quiet, I will kill thou.
Back!
Turn around!
Turn this way!

It is curious that in certain situations even the officially prescribed form of address shifts from the polite form to the familiar one. In fact, I am not even sure whether it is possible in any language, that distinguishes you from thou, to say something like: “If you do not remain silent, I shall kill you” using a formal mode of address. I suspect it is not.

Do you want to fight on our side?
Do you want to serve in our army?
Do you not want to fight against us?
Do you not want to fight at all?
Were you treated badly during your service?

I did not know that, at roughly the same time as the Americans, the Soviet Army had also adopted similar booklets for comparable purposes, albeit mutatis mutandis. This Russian–Estonian military phrasebook (разговорник), published in 1940 by the State Military Publishing House of the People's Commissariat of Defence of the Soviet Union, reached me through my Uzbek translator friend, Temur.

Are there livestock (horses)?
How many cows (sheep)?
Is there hay (oats)?
Enough for how many horses?
How many inhabitants are there?
Where does the village headman live?
Call the headman here!
Vacate these houses for the army.

The booklet consists of three parts. The introductory section contains basic expressions in seven categories (а-ж): establishing contact, place and time, numbers, quantities, measurements, and ranks. This is followed by the most common sentences used in conversations with the two principal groups among the natives: soldiers and the “population” (жители), organized into ten thematic sections each. Alongside the Russian text, the Estonian equivalents are provided together with a phonetic transcription in Cyrillic characters to facilitate pronunciation.

How many minutes ago?
In how many days?
In how many hours?
In how many minutes?
State only the number/date *.
Repeat.
At what time of day?

The structure of the dialogues reveals a clear and highly developed methodology, demonstrating a thorough practical understanding of how to obtain unambiguous information in an unfamiliar language. It seeks to reduce answers to yes-or-no responses, asks for repetition, cross-checks information, follows up systematically on details, has numbers written down, reassures, admonishes, and praises.

Can bread (meat) be obtained?
For how many people?
Gather the cows (sheep) and bring them here!
Gather and bring fodder for the horses!
Gather and bring food for the men!
Do not be afraid of the soldiers of the Red Army!

This methodology relaxes only in the section where the questioner becomes interested in the informants’ opinions. I do not know how, without a deeper knowledge of the language, he could have understood the answers to questions such as “How do the [enemy] soldiers speak about the Soviet Union?” or “What is the attitude of the population toward the soldiers?”

Have you killed any of your commanders?
Whom did you kill? What was his position?
What is his surname?
What is his rank?
Are you a member of a political party?
State the name of that party.

A former user of the pocketbook marked two places with pencil crosses. The smaller cross falls between the questions “Do they [that is, the enemy] have war dogs?” and “Do they have carrier pigeons?”, perhaps slightly closer to the dogs. The larger cross stands beside the question “Where is the general staff (headquarters)?”

The Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Russian military map, 1940

On 16 June 1940, three days after the German army entered Paris, the Soviet army occupied Estonia, which had been assigned to the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. By 21 June, the entire Estonian army had been disarmed and taken prisoner. In addition, by July 1941 a further 54,000 people were deported or executed, including almost the entire political and military leadership of the country. When the German invasion began, 33,000 young Estonians were forcibly conscripted into the Red Army; shortly thereafter they were declared unreliable and sent to the Gulag. Deportations and executions resumed from 1944 onward. By 1945, Estonia had lost 25% of its population. This was the highest wartime human loss ratio in Europe. Between 1945 and 1956, further purges and dekulakization campaigns took place. At the same time, the resettlement of a Russian population into Estonia began.