Swearing in films and plays is banned in Russia

[Larry1]

I saw last week that the bill in the Duma to ban swearing in films, theater, and concerts has passed.  Here are highlights from a discussion of the bill:

Putin has decided to take on the Russian language—in particular, its florid and flexible lexicon of profanity, known as mat. On Monday, Putin signed legislation that has been floating around the Duma for years: as of July 1st, there will be no swearing in movies and theatrical productions or from the concert stage.

You won’t read it in your local family newspaper, but the law centers on the four pillars of mat: there is (four common swear words are listed, alongside their English equivalents*). Sorry about that, but the English equivalents are, if anything, rather pallid and polite. And that’s just the beginning, the base ingredients for the great lexical fantasia of mat. As Victor Erofeyev describes at delicious length in his 2003 article “Dirty Words,” there are thousands of variations and elaborations on these four words, and they go back to the earliest Russian classics. The page of variations on (one particular swear word*), part of a tremendously detailed online dictionary of Russian swearing, gives a sense of the possibilities.)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/05/vladimir-putins-four-dirty-words.html

The author wonders whether a public recitation of the following Lermontov** poem would draw a fine:

"A Holiday in Peterhof”:

And so, I will not pay you
However, if you are a simple ____*
You should consider it an honor
To be acquainted with the cadet's ____!*

Here is an excerpt from another discussion:

Dostoyevsky claimed that a Russian could express the entire range of his feelings with one word, which he dared not write. That word is ____*, a term for the male ____  _____ *...

Women now use it more and more. Teen-agers are using a gentler version now that enables them to discuss sexual activity.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/09/15/030915fa_fact_erofeyev

*swear words redacted so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of any of the few blue-nosed prudes among us.  You may read the words in the New Yorker article at the link above.

** Mikhail Lermontov is a famous 19th century Russian poet and painter.