Katsap and khokhol

Neighboring peoples hating each other from the heart always have some nice names in store for the other, in which they compress their contempt and aversion. In Russian-Ukrainian relations, such is the pair of names which are particularly common these days in the flames of Ukrainian and Russian forums: katsap and khokhol.

The хохол, used by the Russians to mock the Ukrainians – yes, the great Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol [pronounce Khokhol] was also called like this –, originally meant the single, long lock of hair left on the otherwise completely shaved head of the Zaporozhye Cossack warriors. The Cossacks, of course, were only one amongst the several Southern Russian, Ruthenian, Rusyn and other ethnic groups with radically different historical traditions, who were involved in the Ukrainian ethnogenesis. Nevertheless, as this nickname, documented since the 17th century, was used for all the “little Russians” in today’s Ukraine, it was in fact the first comprehensive ethnonym of the Ukrainian nation, crystallizing itself since the late 19th century. Perhaps this also contributes to the fact that today the figure of the warrior or funny Cossack is a mascot of Ukrainian identity even in such regions as Podolia or Galicia, which have nothing to do with the Cossack tradition, and where the local Ruthenians even considered the Cossacks as a different and hostile ethnic group. And perhaps also to the other fact that today they try to put a positive spin on the name khokhol, and thereby the image of the Ukrainian nation, with the long hair.


However, the origins of the name кацап – used by the Ukrainians to mock the Russians – are disputed. According to Vladimir Dal’s authoritative Great Russian dictionary, it was borrowed from the Turkish and Tartar kasab, ʻbutcher’ in the meaning of ʻwarrior, soldier’, and it also came to the Ruthenians from the Cossack territories over the Dnester.



Nevertheless, The etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language (1985, II. 572.) is not satisfied with this etymology:

“…очевидно, утворене від цап за допомогою специфічного компонента ка-, як жартівливе позначення людей, що носять довгі бороди (Фасмер II 213, Преобр. I 302, Bruckner 211), недостатньо обґрунтоване виведення (Крымский Укр. Гр. I 20, Яворницький 342) від тур. крим.-тат. аз. kassap «м'ясник», яке походить від ар. qaşşăb.”

“…obviously from tsap, ʻbilly-goat’, with the addition of the prefix ka, ʻlike’, as a comic reference to people wearing long beards (Фасмер II 213, Преобр. I 302, Bruckner 211). The explanation (Крымский Укр. Гр. I 20, Яворницький 342), which derives it from Turkish and Crimean Tartar kassap ʻbutcher’ or Arabic qaşşăb (with a similar meaning) is not satisfactory.”



Although the source of the pejorativeness of ethnic nicknames is, in most cases, the fact that exclusively the people disdaining us uses that name, nevertheless, it is not even so that the source of the nickname is indifferent. It just feels better if you are mocked as a formidable enemy. And it just feels better if you can mock them as miserable billy-goats.