Whether Tatcher said: “If you spit to Russia, it will rest. If Russia spits, half a world will bend ”?

The British Prime Minister often attributes the phrase on how to carefully arrange bilateral relations with Russia. We checked whether Tatcher really belonged to these words.

February 23, 2022 on the air of the Vesti program on the Russia-1 channel I went out The plot of the correspondent of Mikhail Antonov about how sanctions imposed against Russia will be reflected in Europeans. Criticizing the various actions and statements of British politicians, Antonov said: “It is not known for sure whether Margaret Thatcher formulated his thought, but they attribute the following statement to her:“ If you spit to Russia, it will rest. If Russia spits, half the world will chop up! ””

In the afternoon, the newspaper "Moscow Komsomolets" Published The open letter of Boris Gromov is the head of the All -Russian Public Organization of Veterans, Hero of the Soviet Union, the former Governor of the Moscow Region and the State Duma deputy. In the text addressed to the “heads of the USA, EU, NATO, England and other countries,” Gromov announced the support of the actions of the Russian leadership and criticized the actions of foreign leaders. In particular, the author of the open letter called on the addressees “Remember how M. Thatcher said:“ ... if you spit to Russia, it will rest. And if Russia spits, it will chop off half the world ”.” A few days later, Gromov’s letter posted several thematic public On VKontakte.

The plot of Antonov and the open letter of Gromov are far from the first references to Tatcher's “Quote”. With minor differences in the formulation, it appeared about a year before in Twitter, and in 2018 it became a heading of one of the posts on the platform "Yandex.Zen". There is a rather different version of the words attributed to Tatcher. On the site of aphorisms "Pearls of thought" Found The wording “If the world imposes sanctions on Russia, it will rest. If Russia imposes sanctions on the world, it will drown. ”

Judging by the search in other social networks, the earliest references to this phrase date back to 2014. For example, right away some users Facebook was placed on their pages “Quote” by that on August, then it was added to the “pearl of thought” website in the second wording. On Twitter "Quote" steel To post Later, in the fall and winter, and closer to the end of the year you can meet the mention of the alleged statements of Thatcher Pikabu and in Livejournal.

At the same time, the words attributed to the “Iron Lady” about the “spit to Russia” are not found at all in English -speaking sources published before the end of February 2022 (later only in Translations Letters Gromov). It was not possible to find the phrase of interest to us in academic texts - both in Russian and in English. Probably, the most complete collection of documents related to the “iron lady” was collected by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. On the site of the organization Available An open collection, which includes thousands of interviews, speeches, statements and public comments of the British Prime Minister. None of these sources managed to find a single phrase that is somewhat similar to the attached Tatcher in social networks.

Some Internet users suggestthat the phrase, which has been periodically imposed on Tatcher’s quote, is the result of folk art. Possible predecessor of the expression: “If you spit into the team, the team will turn off if the team spits you, you will drown” from the fantastic novel Pavel Kornev "Black Dreams" (2008). Even earlier, in 2002, Dmitry Puchkov put this phrase into the mouth of one of the characters, creating Alternative voice acting of the first film from the film trilogy "The Lord of the Rings".

According to the sources available at the moment, we can conclude: there is no evidence that Margaret Thatcher has ever used the phrase attributed to her. This quote is not found either in the collection on the website of the Thatcher Foundation, or in other authoritative sources in English. In Russian, the phrase began to be attributed to Tatcher in 2014 users of social networks, while it is very similar to another phrase that appeared long before and in no way with the “iron lady”.

Photo on the cover: Johnny Edditt / AFP Via Getty Images

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Speeches, Interviews & Other Statements
2. Did Margaret Thatcher say that the economically appropriate population of Russia is 15 million people?
3. Did Bismarck say: “I know hundreds of ways to get a Russian bear out of the den, but not one to drive him back”?