In his speech, Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2021 Dmitry Muratov cited as an example the saying “The dog barks, but the caravan moves on,” the meaning of which, in his opinion, is misunderstood by the majority. We checked whether this statement is justified.

On December 10, 2021, at the Oslo City Hall, Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov spoke at the ceremony for awarding him the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. At the end of his speech, speaking about the role of press representatives in the life of society, Muratov noticed: “...In Russian, and in English, and in other languages there is a saying: “The dog barks, but the caravan goes on.” It is interpreted as follows: nothing will interfere with the forward movement of the caravan. Sometimes the authorities speak so disparagingly about journalists. They bark but don't affect anything. But I recently learned that the meaning of the saying has the opposite meaning. The caravan moves forward because the dogs bark. They growl and rush at predators in the mountains and deserts. And forward movement is only possible when they accompany the caravan.”

This episode confused some readers, because traditionally the meaning of the saying in Russia is really interpreted as “despite criticism from the outside, continue to do your job,” and not the other way around.

Let us note that this is not the first time that the interpretation given by Dmitry Muratov has appeared in open sources. For example, you can read about it on less authoritative resources "Word Help" And Autogear, and as one of the possible options, and not definitely true. Moreover, 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 seems to be familiar: “despite the fact that.” If the two actions are separated by a dash, then this, according to the authors, indicates the equivalence of the two parts of the saying, and one can use the “due to the fact” logic: “The Bedouins often attacked caravans, so they hired soldiers with dogs to guard travelers, luggage and goods. The barking of dogs announced to lovers of easy money that the caravan and its travelers were under guard and the robbers would not be able to profit. That is, the caravan moves on only because it is guarded by barking dogs.” According to the third option given (also using a dash), the barking of a dog served as a signal about the approach of a caravan, that is, “a dog barks - it means the caravan is coming.”

One of the above sources says that today’s version of the proverb was invented by General Alexander Lebed, who involuntarily modified the expression “A dog barks, the wind blows.” However, this is quite obvious misinformation: the phrase with a caravan can be found not only in collections Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Uyghur and just eastern proverbs and sayings, but also in works Soviet era. Yes, of course, the proverb “A dog barks, the wind blows” is also widespread and even coincides in meaning with that version of the proverb about the caravan, which means “despite the fact that.” But nevertheless, these are two independent expressions.

It is easy to see that already the first mentions of the proverb “The dog barks, the caravan moves on” in the Russian-language press meant the option “despite the fact that”. This was in the 1950s, and in many cases used the conjunction “a” (“The dog barks, but the caravan moves on”), which excluded any ambiguity. The phrase was even used in one of speeches at the XXI Congress of the CPSU in 1959. Moreover, often the quoted proverb ended with the words “in your own way” or "your dear", which also did not give rise to a different interpretation. This interpretation retains hegemony to this day, reflected, in particular, in dictionaries.

As for the West, a similar situation is observed there. For example, in 2015, a famous football coach cited the proverb in an interview Jose Mourinho, by “dogs” meaning his team’s critics. The beginning of the proverb gave its 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 is: “Do not pay attention to the words of the enemy, do your own thing.” It became known to a wide circle of English-speaking readers in 1891 thanks to the art critic John Lockwood Kipling (father of the writer Rudyard), who in his work on the role of animals in India mentioned its movement in the state of Assam along with a synonymous version in which an elephant is mentioned instead of a caravan. And already in the 1930s it was used overseas - by Time magazine and Margaret Mitchell in Gone with the Wind. In all cases it was a variant with but, so in the Western world it can definitely be considered dominant.

And since the East (be it the Arab world or the Turkic world) is usually called the birthplace of folk wisdom, it is time to finally turn to Asian sources. For residents of the USSR, one of the most accessible such sources was the work of the Turkish communist, poet, prose writer and winner of the International Peace Prize Nazim Hikmet. One of his sharply political notes, in 1936 published a separate book, he called it: “It ürür, kervan yürür” (“The dog barks - the caravan moves on”). Here is what Hikmet writes: “Whenever I heard this proverb in childhood, a night desert appeared before my eyes, through which a caravan of camels moved in the hot, brick-like air, silently breathing and raising their bells high into the sky. He walked and walked, and after him dogs came out from afar. It evoked 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 moving caravan.”

This miniature caused a mixed reaction among Hikmet’s political opponents, in connection with which he responded with another feuilleton, where he wrote: “I am not so deaf as not to hear the ear-piercing howl of a dog about any leap taken for the cause of the revolution. <...> It was announced that I would be deprived of my daily wages because I consider the whole history of mankind to be, in a certain sense, the history of a struggle between moving caravans and howling dogs.”

As we see, even almost a century ago in the country that is considered the possible birthplace of the proverb, the barking of dogs was opposed to the movement of a caravan. However, to be more sure, let’s still look at more professional sources. "Turkish-English Dictionary" 1945 also leaves no options: "Dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on." Similar meaning mentioned in modern Turkish philological text. And even if we turn to Arabic speakers sources, then in them the meaning of the proverb الكلاب تعوي والقافلة تسير‎ is usually interpreted in context "despite that."

Does this mean that the interpretation “thanks to the barking of the dog” is fundamentally wrong? Not really. For clarification, we turned to Dmitry Andreevich himself, who said that he learned about such an interpretation from people accompanying caravans in Afghanistan, and we were talking about a specific large breed of dog, common in neighboring Tajikistan. From all this we can conclude that over time, the eastern proverb has been rethought 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 truer, original meaning of the expression is exactly the way most of us understand it.