The Laureate of the Nobel Prize of the World 2021 Dmitry Muratov in his speech gave the saying as an example “the dog barks, and the caravan goes”, the meaning of which, in his opinion, the majority is perceived incorrectly. We checked how reasonable this statement is.

On December 10, 2021, in the building of the town hall of the city of Oslo, the editor -in -chief of Novaya Gazeta Dmitry Muratov spoke at the 2021 Nobel Prize of the World of the Nobel Prize. At the end of his speech, speaking about the role of representatives of the press in the life of society, Muratov I noticed: “... in Russian, in English, and in other languages there is a saying:“ The dog barks, and the caravan goes ” -“ The Dog Barks, But the Caravan Goes On ”. It is interpreted as follows: nothing will interfere with the movement forward of the caravan. Sometimes power speaks so dismissively about journalists. They bark, but do not affect anything. And I recently found out, the meaning of the saying has the opposite meaning. The caravan goes forward because the dogs bark. They growl and rush to predators in the mountains and deserts. And the movement forward is possible only when they accompany the caravan. ”

This episode was confused by some readers, because traditionally the meaning of the saying in Russia really interpreted As “despite criticism from the side, continue to do your job,” and not vice versa.

Note that the interpretation given by Dmitry Muratov appears in open sources for the far from the first time. For example, it can be read about it on low -pharmaceutical resources "Certificate of words" And AutoGear, and as one of the possible options, and not unambiguously true. At the same time, in both sources, the emphasis is on the punctuation mark between the two parts of the proverb. If there is a comma there, then the meaning is as if familiar: "Despite the fact." If the two actions are divided by the sign of the dash, then this, according to the authors, speaks of the equivalent of two parts of the saying, and you can use the logic “due to the fact”: “Bedouins often attacked caravans, therefore, soldiers with dogs hired soldiers and goods. The barking of dogs announced lovers of easy profit stating that the caravan and his travelers are under guard and the robbers would not be able to profit from the robbers. That is, the caravan is only because it goes that barking dogs guard it. ” According to the third given version (also using a dash), the dog barking served as a signal about the approach of the caravan, that is, "the dog barks - that means that the caravan is going."

One of the above sources says that today's version of the proverb was invented by General Alexander Lebed, who involuntarily modified the expression "the dog barks - the wind wears." However, this is a fairly obvious misinformation: the phrase with a caravan can be found not only in collections Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Uyghur And simple Eastern proverbs and sayings, but also in works Soviet era. Yes, of course, the proverb "dog barks - the wind wears" is also common and even coincides in meaning With the option of proverbs about the caravan, which means "despite the fact." Nevertheless, these are two independent expressions.

It is easy to make sure that the first references to the proverb “the dog barks, the caravan is going” in the Russian -speaking press meant the option “despite the fact”. It was in the 1950s, and in many cases used Union “A” (“The dog barks, and the caravan goes”), which excluded all kinds of ambiguity. The phrase was even used in one of performances At the XXI Congress of the CPSU in 1959. Moreover, Often The quoted proverb ended with the words "its own way" or "Your road"Which also did not give a reason for a different interpretation. This interpretation retains hegemony to this day, reflecting, in particular, in dictionaries.

As for the West, there is a similar situation there. For example, in 2015, a well -known football coach brought a proverb Jose Mourinho, by "dogs" referring to the critics of their team. The beginning of the proverb gave the name Collection of works American writer Truman Capote. A phrase containing but ("a") can be found in such an authoritative publication as "Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs". From "Dictionary of popular American proverbs and sayings" (2000) You can find out that the meaning of the phrase: "Do not pay attention to the words of the enemy, do it in your own way." She became known in 1891 to a wide circle of English readers thanks to art critic John Lokwood Kipling (the father of the writer Redyard), who in his work on the role of animals in India mentioned her walk in the state of Assam along with a synonymous option, in which an elephant is mentioned instead of a caravan. And already in the 1930s it was used behind the ocean-Time magazine and Margaret Mitchell in the "blown by the wind". In all cases, it was an option with But, so in the Western world it can be unequivocally considered dominant.

And since the east (whether the Arab world or Turkic -speaking) is usually called the birthplace of folk wisdom, it was time to finally turn to Asian sources. For the inhabitants of the USSR, one of the most affordable such sources was the work of the Turkish communist, poet, prose writer and laureate of the International World of World Nazim Hikmet. One of his acute political notes, in 1936 published A separate book, he called it: “It ürür, Kervan Yürür” (“The dog barks - the caravan goes”). Here is what Hikmet writes: “Whenever I heard this proverb in my childhood, a night desert appeared in front of my eyes, along which in a red -hot, air, inaudibly breathing and rising its bells, a caravan of camels moved into the sky. He walked and walked, and after him dogs came out from afar. He caused a respectful fear in my little heart, this caravan, stubbornly moving forward, leaving the voices of howling dogs far behind ... The whole history of mankind in a certain sense is nothing more than a struggle between barking dogs and a caravan. ”

This miniature caused an ambiguous reaction among the political opponents of Hikmet, in connection with which he responded with another feuilleton, where he wrote: “I am not so deaf as not to hear the dog’s ears piercing ears about any jump undertaken for the work of the revolution. <...> It was announced that I would be deprived of my lifting fee for considering the whole history of mankind in a certain sense the history of the struggle between the walking caravans and howling dogs. "

As you can see, even almost a century ago in a country that is considered a possible homeland of a proverb, the barking of dogs was opposed to the movement of the caravan. However, for greater confidence, let's still look at more professional sources. "Turkish-English dictionary"1945 also leaves no options:" Dogs can bark, but the caravan is going on. " Similar meaning Mentioned In a modern Turkish philological text. And even if we turn to Arabic sources, then in them the meaning of the proverb الكnds تimes والقافلة تimesult is usually interpreted in context "Despite the fact."

Does this mean that the interpretation of “thanks to the bark of the dog” is fundamentally wrong? Not really. For clarifications, we turned to Dmitry Andreyevich himself, who said that he learned about such an interpretation from people who accompanied caravans in Afghanistan, and we were talking about a specific large breed of dogs common in neighboring Tajikistan. From all this, we can conclude that over time, the eastern proverb has undergone rethinking and now in some regions and in a professional environment it may have a different meaning. But the bulk of the facts tells us that the more faithful, sown meaning of the expression is exactly what most of us understand it.