Does anyone know where I might find a translation of those patriotic slogans that were frequently painted on the turrets of Russian tanks in WW II? Because of the complex grammer of Russian, a dictionary is of limited help. It’s not always enough to know the meaning of the root word unless you also know all the grammatical inflections of it too.
There were many many different slogans painted on Soviet tanks and some were not even in Russian but in other languages used by people from this vast country! I think one can ‘categorize’ those slogans into 3 classes:
- the patriotic type of slogan such as ‘For the Homeland’, ‘For Russia’,… to which one can add the ever popular ‘For Stalin’
- reference to real or legendary heroes
- indication of whom donated the money to buy the vehicle (town, village, Kolkoze, factory,…)
When ever you have a question about any of these slogans. E-mail me at alexdenisenko@hotmail.com. I speak russian and I can translate the slogan or what says on the picture.[:D]
I’ve always been wary of puting these slogans on my models. As I can’t speak Russian, I was allways leary of them, as you might end up saying something like. “,… NO milk till next Thursday!” or “You’re on report, comrade!” or something like that …[:D][:D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][swg][swg]
Rob Savage
Mine might say “This model sucks and is not worthy of me, the decal”
That’s why I want to know what they say. I normally work from a photo when I build a model, and if the subject vehicle in the photo has artwork, I like to include it. I just don’t want to wind up the object of someone’s twisted sense of humor!
Of course, I am thinking the odds of anyone looking at your model knowing Russian might not be that high! I understand what you mean, however. I put together Hasegawa’s Fw-190 when it came back and was annoyed that there was a mispelled word on the slogan on the side. Nothing a little exacto knife and some letter transposing couldn’t fix, but it was still annoying. If it wasn’t for German class in school, I never would have known.
I think they all translate to: more vodka comrade! Or at least they should!
Glenn
The slogans you find in the kit decals are legitimate. WW2Modelmaker had some silly slogans on their site for modelers to use. I don’t think you can buy anything that isn’t a patriotic russian slogan. The Kagero book “Eastern Front, pt. 1” and the Ground Power book “Camouflage & Markings of Soviet Tanks” both have Soviet slogans and translations. The Kagero book also has a sheet of very nice decals for all types of WW2
russian tanks. I can also translate Russian if you need some help.
Thanks for the input, guys. I’m still doing research–looking at lots of pics of T-34/76s, and once I settle on one, I’ll probably have more questions, assuming it has a slogan. Nevertheless, I’m just curious about these things. Maybe the answer is one of those pocket translators for travelers.