Tyrannicide

Tyrannicide (pronounced ti-ran-uh-sahyd or tahy- ran-uh-sahyd)

(1) The act of killing a tyrant.

(2) A person who kills a tyrant.

1640-1650: From the French tyrannicide, from the Latin tyrrannicīdium & tyrannicīda, the construct being tryant +‎ -cide.  Tryant was from the Middle English ttyraun, tiraunt, tyrant & tyrante, from the Old French tyrant, constructed with the addition of a terminal -t to tiran (from the Middle French tyran (a tryant or bully), from the Latin tyrannus (despot (source also of the Spanish tirano and the Italian tiranno)), from the Ancient Greek τύραννος (túrannos) (usurper, monarch, despot) of uncertain origin but which some have speculated may be a loan -word from a language of Asia Minor (perhaps Lydian); some etymologists compare it to the Etruscan Turan (mistress, lady (and the surname of Venus)).  The evolutionary process was via a back-formation related to the development of French present participles out of the Latin -ans form, thus the unetymological spelling with -t arose in Old French by analogy with present-participle endings in -ant.  The feminine form tyranness seems first to have been documented in 1590, perhaps derived from the Medieval Latin tyrannissa, although whether this emerged from courtiers in palaces or husbands in more humble abodes isn’t recorded.  The plural was tryants.

In Archaic Greece, tryant was a technical rather than a casually descriptive term, applied to a usurper (one who gains power and rules extra-legally, distinguished from kings elevated by election or natural succession), something discussed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in his landmark The Social Contract (1762) in which he noted “they applied it indifferently to good and bad princes whose authority was not legitimate”.  It’s now used to describe a despot; a ruler who governs unjustly, cruelly, or harshly and, by extension, any person in a position of authority who abuses the power of their position or office to treat others unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.  In Greece, a ruler (tyrannical or otherwise) was variously the archon, basileus or aisymnetes; an unjust ruler or superior is typically now called autocrat, dictator, despot or martinet.  What Rousseau didn’t dwell on was that while in the Greek tradition, the word was not applied to old hereditary sovereignties (basileiai) and despotic kings, it was used of usurpers, even when popular, moderate, and just (the most celebrated in the surviving histories being Cypselus of Corinth in the seventh century BC) but, presumably by unfortunate association, it soon became a word of reproach in the modern sense.  A hint of this may be found in the way in Greek theatre of the fourth century BC, cherished pathos in regard to tyrannicide.  The noun plural was tyrannicides.

The suffix –cide was from the From Middle French -cide, from the Latin -cīda (cutter, killer), from -cīdium (killing), from caedō (to cut, hew, kill) and was a noun-forming suffix denoting “an act of killing or a slaughter”, “one who kills” or “one who cuts” from the appropriate nouns stems.  In English, the alternative form was –icide.

Tyrannicide is a noun.  The adjective tyrannous (of tyrannical character) was from the late fifteenth century whereas the now more common adjective tyrannical dates from the 1530s from the Classical Latin tyrannicus (arbitrary, despotic), from the Ancient Greek tyrannikos (befitting a despot) from tyrannos.  The adjectival variation tyrannic was used in this sense from the late fifteenth century and the companion adverb was tyrannically.  The adjective tyrannicidal was a creation of the mid-1800s which gained a new popularity in the next century when examples abounded.  The late fourteenth century noun tyranny (cruel or unjust use of power; the government of a tyrant) was from the thirteenth century Old French tyranie, from the Late Latin tyrannia (tyranny), from the Ancient Greek tyrannia (rule of a tyrant, absolute power) from tyrannos (master).

The tyrannosaurus (carnivorous Cretaceous bipedal dinosaur) was named in 1905 and came to public attention the following year when US paleontologist, geologist (and enthusiastic eugenicist) Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935) who coined the term, published his research in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, the construct being the Ancient Greek tyrannos + -saurus (from the Ancient Greek σαῦρος (saûros) (lizard, reptile)).  The now familiar abbreviation T-Rex appears not to have been used before 1970 when it was adopted as the name of a pop-group.  In the avian branch of zoology, tyrant birds are members of the family Tyrannidae, which often fight or drive off other birds which approach their nests which seems a bit of a slur.

In the early days of Antiquity, tyrannicide was a part of the political process and rather than being thought of as what would now be called a “criminal” act, it was just another method of transferring power.  As societies evolved and recognizable civilizations emerged from competing cultures, attitudes did change and tyrannicide began to be regarded as a form of murder which might be self-justifying depending on the context and the degree of tyranny eradicated although Aristotle did distinguish between those who committed tyrannicide for personal gain and those (rare) disinterested souls who did it for the good of the community.

However intricately philosophers and legal theorists added the layer of nuance, tyrannicide (many of which were of course also acts of regicide ("the killing of a king" (used also for assassinated queens, ruling princes etc) or "one who does the killing", from the Latin rēgis (king (genitive singular of rēx)) +‎ -cide (killer), patterned after suicide, tyrannicide etc) remained a popular and expedient way to hasten dynastic or political change.  It could be said the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) and established the principle that the religion a ruler choose to adopt for himself and his nation was a purely internal matter and not one to be changed by foreign intervention, represented the beginning of an international law which would come to outlaw the assassinations of rulers, tyrants or not.  That however is a retrospective view and not one at the time discussed.

Nor would legal niceties have been likely much to influence those who would wish to kill a tryant, some of whom have even claimed some justification under natural law.  Whether Brutus (85-42 BC) ever uttered the phrase Sic semper tyrannis (thus always to tyrants) after stabbing Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) or not (as the historian Plutarch (46-circa 122) maintained), it resonated through history, John Wilkes Booth, noting in his diary that he shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" after killing Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; US president 1861-1865) in 1865.  History doesn’t record if the words were on the lips of those who either attempted or succeeded in dispatching Adolf Hitler (1944), Benito Mussolini (1945), Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García (1956), the Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo (1961), South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee (1979), President Anwar Sadat of Egypt (1981), Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah (1996) & Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (2011), but it can be imagined they weren’t far from the assassins’ thoughts.

International law did however evolve to the point where the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons was presented in 1973, coming into force in 1977 and eventually ratified by 180 countries.  Although the convention was inspired by a spike in the assassination of diplomats in the early 1970s, the protection was extended to tyrants, the wording of the relevant clause being in Article 1a which declared that the ranks of “internationally protected persons” included:

A Head of State, including any member of a collegial body performing the functions of a Head of State under the constitution of the State concerned, a Head of Government or a Minister for Foreign Affairs, whenever any such person is in a foreign State, as well as members of his family who accompany him.

While it’s true Libya’s ratification of the convention didn’t save Colonel Gaddafi from becoming a victim of tyrannicide, he would at least have died knowing he was being assassinated in contravention of a UN convention.  Whether Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) was either explicitly calling for or hinting that an act of tyrannicide should be visited upon Vladimir Putin excited much interest recently when the US president labeled his Russian counterpart as a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power”.  It certainly could be construed as a call for Mr Putin’s “removal”, despite the White House in recent weeks having repeatedly emphasized that regime change in Russia is not US policy.  “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” Mr Biden said at the end of his speech in front of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, an unscripted sentiment he apparently added in the heat of the moment.

Methods of tyrannicide vary: this is the kiss of death.

It took only minutes for the White House damage-control team to scramble, playing down the remarks with a Kafkaesque assertion that the president “was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change” but was instead making the point that Putin “…cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”  Within the Washington DC’s Capital Beltway the internal logic of the distinction makes complete sense, the White House insisting, a la the Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican presidential candidate 1964) school of clarity of expression that what matters is not what Mr Biden says but what he means and they’re here to explain that.  Perhaps the staff should give Mr Biden a list of helpful ways of advocating tyrannicide.  Arthur Calwell (1896–1973; Leader of the Australian Labor Party 1960-1967) didn’t escape controversy when he called for “the visitation of the angel of death” upon the tyrannical Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864–1963; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne 1917-1963) but it was more poetic than Mr Biden’s efforts and Calwell, if accused of advocating tyrannicide, could point out he was calling merely for episcopicide (the killing of a bishop, the construct being the Latin episcopus (bishop in a Christian church who governs a diocese), from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos) (overseer), the construct being ἐπί (epí) (over) + σκοπός (skopós) (watcher, lookout, guardian) +‎ -cide), something with a long if not always noble tradition.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (b 1962; US secretary of state since 2021), noted for his precision of oral expression, followed up by saying it wasn’t the intention of Mr Biden to topple Mr Putin.  “The president made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else” Mr Blinken said while speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, adding that “the US did not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else”.  It’s “… up to the people of the country in question… the Russian people”.

Given the context of Mr Biden’s speech, it wasn’t difficult to understand why it aroused such interest.  Earlier, he’d called the invasion of Ukraine an act of aggression “… nothing less than a direct challenge to the rule-based international order established since the end of World War II” and that the valiant resistance of the Ukrainian people was a “battle for freedom” and the world must prepare for a “long fight ahead”.  “We stand with you,” he told Ukrainians in the speech which had begun with the famous words of the Polish Pope Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005): “Be not afraid”, a phrase associated with a earlier call for regime change within the countries of what was then the Warsaw Pact.  In remarks addressed directly to citizens of Russia, he added: This war is not worthy of you, the Russian people”.

The Kremlin’s displeasure at the remarks was soon expressed, prompting the White House cleaners to explain that what Mr Biden said was not what he meant and by Sunday the president appeared to be back on-message.  When asked by a reporter if he was calling for regime change in the Kremlin, he answered: “No”.

Forms in English constructed with the suffix –cide.

Ketchup

Ketchup (pronounced kech-uhp or kach-uhp)

(1) A condiment consisting of puréed tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, spices etc.

(2) Any of various other condiments or piquant sauces for meat, fish (mushroom ketchup; walnut ketchup etc).

1711: From the Malay (Austronesian) kichap or kəchap (fish sauce), possibly from the dialectal Chinese kéjāp (Guangdong) or ke-tsiap (Xiamen) (akin to the Chinese qié (eggplant) + chī (juice)) or from the Chinese (Amoy) kōetsiap (koechiap) (brine of pickled fish), the construct being kōe (seafood) + tsiap (sauce).  Linguistic anthropologists concluded that if came from the latter, it was probably from the Chinese community in northern Vietnam.  Catsup and the even earlier catchup (1680s) were earlier anglicized forms which died out, except in the US where, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, catsup is still in use.

Tomato came later

Ketchup was originally a fish sauce made from various plant juices but came to be used in English for a wide variety of spiced gravies and sauces.  In the seventeenth century, the Chinese mixed pickled fish and spices and called it (in the Amoy dialect) kôe-chiap or kê-chiap (鮭汁) meaning the brine of pickled fish (鮭, salmon; 汁, juice) or shellfish.  By the early eighteenth century, the table sauce had arrived in the Malay states (present day Malaysia and Singapore) and colonists took it home to England.  The Malaysian-Malay words for the sauce were variations of kicap & kecap and those evolved into the English "ketchup". 

Published in London, William Kitchiner’s (1775-1827) Apicius Redivivus (Cook's Oracle, 1817), included seven pages of recipes for different types of catsup (1 spelled ketchup, 72 catsup), including walnut, mushroom, cucumber, oyster, cockle and mussel, tomato, as well as more exotic concoctions made with vinegar and anchovies, suggesting the word was adopted to describe just about any spiced sauce.  By the 1870s, English cookbooks and encyclopedias noted mushroom, walnut, and tomato ketchup were the predominate flavors; in the US, tomato ketchup emerged circa 1800 and dominated by the late nineteenth century.  In the English-speaking word, despite Ketchup’s English origins, it seems now regarded as a US form and “tomato sauce” is elsewhere generally preferred.  In German use, Ketchup is now the approved form, the alternative spelling Ketschup now proscribed after being deprecated in a 2017 German spelling reform.

In 2004, US food processing company HJ Heinz conducted its "Four stars fall for Heinz Ketchup" promotion with the debut of Heinz's new Celebrity Talking Labels.  Former Pittsburgh Steelers National Football League (NFL) quarterback Terry Bradshaw (b 1948), dual Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion Mia Hamm (b 1972), actor William Shatner (b 1931) and actor Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) were the subjects of the talking labels campaign and the range was released in what Heinz said were "limited-edition bottles of the condiment", each featuring labels with quotes from each celebrity.  The promotion was well-received and extended until 2006 when Heinz offered consumers the opportunity to create their own labels by ordering customized bottles through a page on the Heinz website.

Oligarch

Oligarch (pronounced ol-i-gahrk)

(1) In political science, one of the rulers in an oligarchy (a system of government characterized by the institutional or constructive rule of a few and the literal or effective exclusion of the many); a member of an oligarchy.

(2) A very rich person involved in business in a manner which interacts intimately with the organs of government, the nature of the relationship varying between systems but usually with the implication of mutually beneficial corrupt or improper (if sometimes technically lawful) conduct.

(3) In cosmogony, a proto-planet formed during oligarchic accretion.

1600-1610: From the French oligarque & olygarche, from the Late Latin oligarcha, from the Ancient Greek ὀλιγάρχης (oligárkhēs) and related to oligarkhia (government by the few), the construct being olig- (few) (from stem of oligos (few, small, little) (a word of uncertain origin)) +‎ -arch (ruler, leader) (from arkhein (to rule)).  The noun plural was oligarchs.  In English, an earlier form of oligarchy was the circa 1500 oligracie, a borrowing from the Old French.  Oligarch & oligarchy are nouns, oligarchal, oligarchical & oligarchic are adjectives, and oligarchically is an adverb; the noun plural is oligarchs.  The playful minigarch (the offspring of an oligarch) and oligarchette (a female oligarch or an aspiring oligarch not yet rich enough to be so described are both non-standard while oligarchie & oligarchisch are sometimes used to convey a deliberate sense of the foreign.  Oligarch is now almost never used in its classical sense to refer to rulers of a political entity but instead to describe the small numbers of those who have become exceedingly rich, usually in some improper (even if technically lawful) way with the corrupt and surreptitious cooperation of those in government, the implication being they too have benefited.  Words like plutocrat, potentate and tycoonocrat are sometimes used as synonyms but don’t covey the sense of gains improperly and corruptly achieved.

Oligarchs are sometimes described in the press as "colorful characters", something a bit misleading because many seek a low profile, something often advisable in Mr Putin's Russia.  In a movie about oligarchs Netflix presumably would focus on some of the more colorful.

In modern use, an oligarch is one of the select few people who have become very rich by virtue of their close connections to rule or influence leaders in an oligarchy (a government in which power is held by a select few individuals or a small class of powerful people).  Unlike the relationship between “monarch” & “monarchy”, “oligarch” & “oligarchy” are not used in the literature of political science in quite the same way.  A monarch’s relationship to their monarchy is a thing defined by the constitutional system under which they reign and that may be absolute, despotic or theocratic but is inherently directly linked.  However, even in a political system which is blatantly and obviously an oligarchy, the members of the ruling clique are not referred to as oligarchs by virtue of their place in the administration, the more common descriptors being autocrat, despot, fascist, tyrant, dictator, totalitarian, authoritarian, kleptocrat or other terms that to varying degrees hint at unsavoriness.  Instead, the word oligarch has come to be used as a kind of encapsulated critique of corruption and economic distortion and the individual oligarch a personification of that.  The modern oligarch is one who has massively profited, usually by gaining in some corrupt way either the resources which once belonged to the state or trading rights within the state which tend towards monopolistic or oligopolistic arrangements.  Inherent in the critique is the assumption that the corrupt relationship is a symbiotic one between oligarch and those in government, the details of which can vary: oligarchs may be involved in the political process or entirely excluded but a common feature to all such arrangements is that there is a mutual enrichment at the expense of the sate (ie the citizens).  The word oligarch has thus become divorced from oligarchy and attached only to oligopoly.

The word oligopoly dates from 1887, from the Medieval Latin oligopolium, the construct being the Ancient Greek ὀλίγος (olígos) (few) + πωλεῖν (poleîn) (to sell) from the primitive Indo-European root pel (to sell) and describes a market in which an industry is dominated by a small number of large-scale sellers called oligopolists (the adjectival form oligopolistic from a surprisingly recent 1939).  Oligopolies, which inherently reduce competition and impose higher prices on consumers do not of necessity form as a result of improper or corrupt collusion and may be entirely organic, the classic example of which is two competitors in a once broad market becoming increasingly efficient, both achieving such critical mass that others are unable to compete.  At that point, there is often a tendency for the two to collude to divide the market between them, agreeing not to compete in certain fields or geographical regions, effectively creating sectoral or regional monopolies.  If competitors do emerge, the oligopolists have sufficient economic advantage to be able temporarily to reduce their selling prices to below the cost of production & distribution, forcing the completion from the market, after which the profitable price levels are re-imposed.

A classic game theory model of oligopolistic behavior.

Although not thought desirable by economists, they’ve long attracted interest interest because they create interesting market structures, especially when they interact with instruments of government designed to prevent their emergence or at least ameliorate the consequences of their operation.  The most obvious restriction governments attempt to impose is to prevent collusion between oligopolists in an attempt to deny them the opportunity to set prices of particular goods.  Even if successful, this can only ever partially be done because most prices quickly become public knowledge and with so few sellers in a market, most of which tend to operate with similar input, production & distribution costs, each oligopolist can in most cases predict the actions of the others. This has been of interest in game theory because the decisions of one player are not only in reaction to that of the others but also influences their behavior.

Dartz Prombron: The Prombron is now typical of the preferred transport for an oligarch, the traditional limousine not able to be configured to offer the same level of protection against attacks with military-grade weapons.  Prombrons were originally trimmed with leather from the foreskins of whale penises but the feature was dropped after protests from the environmental lobby.

Oligarchs in the modern sense operate differently and the Russian model under Mr Putin has become the exemplar although some on a smaller scale (notably Lebanon since 1990) are probably even more extreme.  The Russian oligarchs emerged in the 1990s in the chaos which prevailed after the dissolution of the old Soviet Union.  They were men, sometime outside government but often apparatchiks within, well-skilled in the corruption and the operations of the black market which constituted an increasingly large chunk of the economy in the last decade of the USSR and these skills they parlayed into their suddenly capitalistic world.  Capitalism however depends on there being private property and because the USSR was constructed on the basis of Marxist theory which demanded it was the state which owned and controlled the means of production and distribution, there was little of that.  So there was privatization, some of it officially and much of it anything but, the classic examples being a back-channel deal between the oligarch and someone in government purporting to be vested with the authority to sell the assets of the state.  Few in government did this without a cut (often under the guise of a equity mechanism called “loans for shares”) and indeed, some apparatchiks sold the assets to themselves and those assets could be nice little earners like oil & gas concessions or producers, electricity generators, transport networks or financial institutions.  One of the reasons the assets were able to be sold at unbelievably bargain prices was a product of Soviet accounting: because the book value of assets had so little meaning in communist accounting, in many cases recorded asset values hadn’t be updated in decades and were in any case sometimes only nominal.  There were therefore sales which, prima facie, might have appeared to verge on the legitimate.

2021 Aurus Senat, now the official presidential car of the Russian state.

Few were and in any event, even if the aspiring oligarch didn’t have the cash, somewhere in government there would be found an official able to arrange the state to loan the necessary fund from the resources of the state, if need be creating (effectively printing) the money.  From that point, newly acquitted assets could be leveraged, sold to foreign investors at huge profit or even operated in the novelty of the free market, an attractive proposition for many given the asset obtained from the state might be a natural monopoly, competition therefore of no immediate concern.  Thus was modern Russian capitalism born of what were economic crimes on a scale unimaginable to the legions condemned to death or years in the Gulag under comrade Stalin.  Even before becoming prime-minister in 1999, Mr Putin was well aware of what had happened, being acquainted with some of the players in the process but shortly after assuming office, he had small a team of lawyers, accountants and economists undertake a forensic analysis to try more accurately to quantify who did what and who got how much.  Although the paperwork his investigative project produced has never been made public, it was reputed to have been reduced to a modestly-sized file but the contents were dynamic and put to good use.

In either 2003 or 2004, Mr Putin, assisted by officers of the FSB (successor to the alphabet-soup of similar agencies (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD, SMERSH, MGB & (most famously) KGB)) experts in such things, “arranged” a series of interviews with the oligarchs whose conduct in the privatizations of 1990s had been most impressive (or egregious depending on one’s view).  Well aware of the relationship between wealth and political influence, Mr Putin’s explained that the oligarchs had to decide whether they wished to be involved in business or politics; they couldn’t do both.  Mr Putin then explained the extent of their theft from the state, how much was involved, who else facilitated and profited from the transactions and what would be the consequences for all concerned were the matters to come to trial.  Then to sweeten the deal, Mr Putin pointed out that although the oligarchs had stolen their wealth on the grandest scale, “they had stolen it fair and square” and could keep it if they agreed to refrain from involvement in politics.  The Russian oligarchy understood his language, the lucidity of his explanation perhaps enhanced by oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (b 1963; then listed as the richest man in Russia and in the top-twenty worldwide) being arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion, shortly before the meetings were convened (he was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to nine years in prison and while serving his sentence was charged with and found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering.  Mr Putin later pardoned Khodorkovsky and he was released to self-imposed exile in late 2013).  Few failed to note the significance of Mr Khodorkovsky having been "meddling in politics". 

Mr Putin being taken for a drive by George W Bush (b 1946; George XLIII, US president 2001-2009) in the Russian president's GAZ M21 Volga and admiring his 2009 Lada Niva.

In a sign the oligarchs were wise to comply, it was estimated by Bill Browder (b 1964; CEO and co-founder of the once Moscow-linked Hermitage Capital Management) during his testimony to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 that the biggest single increase in Mr Putin’s personal wealth happened immediately after Mr Khodorkovsky was jailed.  Given the history, Mr Browder is perhaps not an entirely impartial viewer but the pact between the autocrat and the oligarchy has been well-understood for years but what has always attracted speculation is the possibility that attached to it was a secret protocol whereby Mr Putin received transactional fees, imposing essentially a license to operate in Russia, alleged by some to be a cut of as much as 50%, based apparently on assessed profits rather than turnover.  Even if a half-share is too high and his cut is a more traditional 10%, the amount payable over the years would have been a very big number so there’s been much speculation about Mr Putin’s money, some estimates suggesting he may have a net wealth in the US$ billions.  That would seem truly impressive, given the Kremlin each year publishes a disclosure of their head of state’s income and assets and the last return disclosed Mr Putin enjoys an annual salary of US$140,000 and owns an 800-square-foot (74 m²) apartment, his other notable assets being three cars: a 1960 (first series) GAZ M21 Volga, a 1965 (second series) GAZ M21P Volga and a 2009 Lada Niva 4x4.  Keen on the outdoors, he also owns a camping trailer.

A country cottage on the Black Sea coast alleged to be owned by Mr Putin.  The large grounds surrounding the cottage are an indication why Mr Putin needs his 2009 Lada 4x4 & camping trailer.

On the basis of that, income and net wealth seem not at all out of alignment but intriguingly, he’s been photographed with some high-end watches on his wrist, including an A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbograph which sells for around US$500,000.  He is rumored to be the owner of a 190,000 square-foot (17,650 m²) mansion which sits atop a cliff overlooking the Black Sea (reputedly Russia’s largest private residence and known, in a nod to the understated manner of the rich, as “Putin’s country cottage”) which has an ice hockey rink, a casino, a nightclub with stripper poles, an extravagantly stocked wine cellar and the finest furniture in Louis XIV style, the toilet-roll holders apparently at US$1,250 apiece (although, given the scale of the place, he may have received a bulk-purchase discount).  It demands a full-time staff of forty to maintain the estate, the annual running costs estimated at US$2-3 million.  Designed by Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo (b 1959), and officially owned (though alleged to be held under a secret trust of which Mr Putin is the sole beneficiary) by oligarch Alexander Ponomarenko (b 1964), the construction cost was estimated to be somewhere around a US$ billion which seems expensive but a yacht currently moored in Italy and alleged also to belong to Mr Putin is said to have cost not much less to launch so either or both may actually represent good value and to assure privacy, the Russian military enforces a no-fly zone around the property.  Like many well-connected chaps around the world, a few of Mr Putin’s billions figured in the release of the Panama Papers in 2016.

1962 GAZ-M21 (rebuilt to KGB (V8) specifications).

Apart from the Black Sea palace, there are unverified reports Mr Putin is the owner of 19 other houses, 58 aircraft & helicopters and 700 cars (although it’s not clear if that number includes his two Volgas and the Lada).  No verified breakdown of the 700 cars has ever been published but given Mr Putin’s apparent fondness for Volgas, it may be his collection includes the special-variant of the GAZ-M21 Volga, 603 (as the GAZ-M23) of which were produced between 1962-1970 for the exclusive use of the KGB and other Soviet “special services”.  Equipped with the 5.53 litre (337 cubic inch) V8 engine from the big GAZ-13 Chaika (Gull) (1959-1981 and in the Soviet hierarchy, second only to the even bigger ZIL limousines (1936-2012)), the car was said to be a not entirely successful piece of engineering but it was certainly faster than the four-cylinder model on which it was based.  It’s never been clear just what was the top speed because the speedometer was calibrated only to 180 km/h (112 mph) but one intrepid KGB apparatchik claimed to have achieved that and reported the Volga was “still accelerating”.  Known to be nostalgic for the old ways of the KGB, it’s hoped Mr Putin has preserved at least one.

Mr Putin agitprop.

Mr Putin has admitted: "I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe but in the whole world: I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia. I believe that is my greatest wealth."  Quite how rich Mr Putin might be is such a swirl of estimates, rumors, supposition and doubtlessly invention (lies) that it's unlikely anyone except those disinclined to discuss the matter really know and after all, if he's rich as his detractors claim, he probably isn't exactly sure himself.  Given that, his statement seemed intended to clear up any misunderstandings.

Amid

Amid (pronounced uh-mid)

(1) In the middle of; surrounded by; among.

(2) During; in or throughout the course of.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English amidde, from the Old English amiddan, from on middan (in (the) middle), the construct being a- + mid.  The a- prefix was used to create many words (apace, astern, abeam, afire, aboil, asunder et al) but is considered now rare or no longer productive; It implied a sense of “in”, “on” or “at such a time” and was used to show those states, conditions, or manners.  It came from the Middle English a- (up, out, away), from the Old English ā- (originally ar- & or-, from the Proto-Germanic uz- (out-), from the primitive Indo-European uds- (up, out) and was cognate with the Old Saxon ā- and the German er-.  Mid and its variations in every known European language (except Icelandic) never meant anything but middle.  The root of the Modern English form is the Middle English mid & midde, from the Old English midd (mid, middle, midway), from the Proto-Germanic midjaz, from the primitive Indo-European médhyos.  It was cognate with the Dutch midden, the German Mitte, the Icelandic miður (worse, less) and the Latin medius.

Amid, amidst and among

Amid is a preposition, a type of word that shows certain kinds of relationships between other words; it has peacefully coexisted with amidst for some seven-hundred years.  Amid has two meanings, the first expresses a kind of physical relationship such as “in the middle of; surrounded by; among.”  This second sense can show a relationship between things in time or convey the idea that something is taking place against the backdrop or background of something else as in “during, in or throughout the course of.”

Amidst, dating from 1250-1300 and derived from the Middle English amiddes, means the same thing as amid and one can substitute for the other without a sentence changing meaning.  Both amid and amidst are thus correct, the former more common in both American and British English although the Americans are slightly more fond of the latter.

It’s an example of the profligacy of English, preserving two words when one would do.  Amid is the older, recorded before 1000, developing from the Old English on middan which begat first the Middle English amidde and then amid.  Amidst appeared between 1250–1300, drawn from the Middle English amides, the –s in amiddes representing a suffix English once used to form adverbs, this strange –s also producing some less common adverbs, such as unawares.  The “t” in the –st suffix is called a parasitic or excrescent –t, technical terms in phonetics to describe a sound inserted to reflect how people find it most easy to pronounce another sound, not because the added sound has any historic or grammatical reason (against, amongst, and whilst are other examples) to exist.

However, “among” is also a preposition but one with more senses than amid.  One of its meanings is “in, into, or through the midst of; in association or connection with; surrounded by” which overlaps with amid & amidst so English offers three similar words which can mean the same thing.  Among however is not wholly interchangeable with the other two.  Although “…a house amid the trees”; “…a house amidst the trees” & “a house among the trees” are all correct, it’s wrong to say either “FDR assumed the presidency among the Great Depression” or “…exercise is amid the things part of a healthy diet”.

Lindsay Lohan's strangely neglected film Among the Shadows (Momentum Pictures, 2019) was also released in some markets as The Shadow Within.  It's not known what prompted the change (although there was a film in 2007 called The Shadow Within) but the original name was certainly preferable to either Amid the Shadows or Amidst the Shadows, not because the latter two impart a different meaning but because "among" better suits the rhythm of the phrase.  "Among" probably was best; "amid" might have worked but "amidst" would have troubled some because that excrescent –t makes difficult a phonetic run-on to "the".  Given the two titles under which the film was distributed have quite different meanings, presumably either the title is incidental to the content or equally applicable.  A dark and gloomy piece about murderous werewolves and EU politicians (two quite frightening species), perhaps both work well and no reviewer appears to have commented on the matter and given the tone of the reviews, it seems unlikely there'll be a sequel to resolve things.

Psychopomp

Psychopomp (pronounced sahy-koh-pomp)

In mythology and religion, a spirit, deity, person etc., who guides the spirits or souls of the dead to the other world or after-life.

1835: From the Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós or psȳchopompós) (conductor (guide) of souls), the construct being ψῡχή (psūkhḗ) (the soul, mind, spirit) + πομπός (pompós) (guide, conductor, escort, messenger). Psyche was from the Latin psychē, from the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  The modern word psychology was from the French psychologie, from the Latin psychologia, the construct being the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul) +-λογία (-logía) (study of).  Pomp was from the Middle English, from the Old French pompe, from the Latin pompa (pomp), from the Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ) (a sending, a solemn procession, pomp”), from πέμπω (pémpō) (I send), from pempein (to send, dispatch, guide, accompany) of unknown origin.  Etymologists note the verb has no etymology drawn from Indo-European traditions and nor does it display the characteristics of loanwords or a pre-Greek vocabulary.  In Classical Latin the nominative was psȳchopompus, the genitive psȳchopompī, the dative psȳchopompō, the accusative psȳchopompum, the ablative psȳchopompō & the vocative psȳchopompe.  Psychopomp is a noun.  The noun plural is psychopomps.

Psychopomps were entities (variously spirits, angels, creatures, birds or even people) in a number of cultures and religions whose role was to guide the souls or spirits of the newly dead from Earth to the afterlife.  Wholly non-judgmental, they impartially took the soul in hand and lead them to the hereafter where, according to tradition, what awaited was perhaps a final judgment but sometimes not.  In both sacred and pagan art, psychopomps have been depicted in (often ethereal) human form, as winged angels, animals such as horses and, very often as winged creatures, most famously ravens or vultures, the birds often in large flocks, massed above and circling, awaiting the death of the dying.  To classicists, the word is most associated with Hermes or Charon but by far the psychopomp which resonates most in popular culture is the Grim Reaper.

Psychopomps of note

La barca de Caront (Charon's boat (circa 1932)) oil on canvas by José Benlliure y Gil (1855 - 1937), Museu de Belles Arts de València.

Although famous in Greek mythology as a pschopomp, Χάρων (Charon, written sometimes as Kharon) was more mercenary than most.  Known as the ferryman of Hades who carries the souls of just deceased who had received the rites of burial, across the river Acheron (pain) (in later accounts, the river Styx (hate)) that divided the world of the living from that of the dead.  Traditionally, Charon’s fee was a single coin (an obolus or danake) which the family left on the lips of the corpse and in some of the myths (there are many variations in Greek mythology), those whose families had not a coin to leave or who were denied funereal rites were condemned to wander the “shores of the river for a hundred winters”.  In the manner of modern container shipping, Charon also carried cargo on his return voyages, the catabasis mytheme recording that heroes (including Sisyphusm, Heracles, Dionysus, Hermes, Odysseus, Orpheus, Theseus & Psyche) were brought back across the river from the underworld in Charon’s boat (although what he charged is not recorded).

Beyond ecumenical, Azrael, the Angel of Death, appears in both Jewish and Christian mythology but in Islamic mythology he uniquely assumes the role of a psychopomp, said to take straight to Allah, every soul directly upon death.  Unlike some traditions in which a role in the timing of someone’s demise is delegated to the pyschopomp, in Islamic theology, only Allah is said to know and decide the precise moment when someone is supposed to die so Azrael has no power of life and death; he is but the cab or the rank, the taxi driver who can never refuse a fare.  In the world of the living, some have tried to help Azrael: there was once a Berber chieftain who instructed his mean to shave their heads, leaving a single tuft of hair so that when their time came, Azrael would have something to which to grab.

Two versions of Valkyrie (1864 (left) & 1869 (right)) by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831–1892), oil on canvas, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.

In Norse mythology there were other psychopomps (Frejya and Odin would sometimes act as psychopomps) but the most famous were the Valkyries, the beautiful maidens who circled high in sky above battlefields, choosing which soldiers would live and which would die.  Half the dead would be taken to Fólkvangr (Freyja's afterlife) and half the Valkyries would take to Valhalla, where they would become einherjar (single fighters) and await the onset of Ragnarök, the climactic “twilight of the gods”.  On the rare occasions when peace reigned and no battles were being fought on Midgard, (the Old Norse name for the soil on which humans dwell), the Valkyries attended the einherjar in the banquet hall of Valhalla, serving them mead (an alcoholic beverage, often described as “fermented honey water” and made by fermenting honey mixed with water, hops and various fruits & spices).  Seen often accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected with swans and especially horses, thanks to innumerable painters of the romantic era and Richard Wagner (1813-1883), (whose Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (the second of the four musical dramas of his Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung (1870)), is probably is best-known fragment), an aura surrounds the Valkyries but if one digs into the Norse myths, they emerge as not always wholly virtuous, sometimes behaving rather like the mean girls of the age.

Late Period Solid-cast copper alloy figure of Anubis, British Museum, London.

Anubis (νουβις in the Ancient Greek, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian and romanized as Anoup) was an Egyptian psychopomp but also assigned a variety of roles under different ruling dynasties including a protector of graves, the god of death & the afterlife, mummification and embalming.  Depicted usually as a man with a canine head (thought sometimes during the First Dynasty as the beast alone).  Anubis' female counterpart was Anput and his daughter was the serpent goddess Kebechet.  In his role as a psychopomp, the jackal-headed god was tasked with guiding souls to Duat, the Egyptian underworld, where they would be judged according to the goodliness done during their earthly existence.  The Egyptians (usually) believed the heart was the repository of the soul so Anubis weighted the organ against a single feather representing truth.  Were the heart lighter than the feather, their journey continued but if too heavily laden with sin, Anubis would cast it to Ammit, a demon known as the “Devourer of the Dead” who would consume it.

The versatile, multi-tasking Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, thieves (and there’s some overlap there) and athletes.  However, he was also the messenger of the gods and thus the fleet-footed Hermes was able to travel between worlds, explaining why he was also the god of border crossings.  Uniquely, Hermes was the only Olympian god able to visit Heaven, Earth, and Hades something he never tired of mentioning to the other, realm-bound gods, and another of his tasks was to lead the souls of the dead to the entrance of Hades, where they awaited the boat of Charon to pick them up. Among the best remembered of Hermes’ charges were the suitors of Odysseus’ wife Penelope, all of whom were killed when the hero finally returned from Troy.

Coming & going, dressed for the occasion.  Lindsay Lohan in Grim Reaper mode fulfilling a court-mandated community service order at LA County Morgue, October 2011.

In the modern age it’s the Grim-Reaper who is the archetypal psychopomp.  Depicted since the fifteenth century as a scythe-carrying skeleton (the enveloping black cloak soon became de rigueur), his (there have in the West been some depictions of the reaper as female (although well-known elsewhere) but a male identity is usually at least implied although, at the artistic level, most imagery is genderless which must be right because, having no soul, the reaper is unworldly) mode of operation varies depending on the source.  Some say he selects the souls to harvest by tapping his victim on the shoulder, a notice to quit the world, while others insist he merely gathers the souls of the departed.  In English, the Grim Reaper was first (at p 11) mentioned in The Circle of Human Life (1847, 113 pp) by Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck (1799–1877), a slim volume published in Edinburgh (by Myles Macphail book-binding) which discussed the stages in the life of a good Christian.

 “There are many who suppose that a clear and certain foreknowledge of the day of their death would exert a very powerful influence upon their mind. In this opinion, however, there must be some deception.  All know full well that life cannot last above seventy, or at the most eighty years.  If we reach that term without meeting the grim reaper with his scythe, there or there about, meet him we surely shall.  Death being thus the most certain of all certain events, why not begin at once the work of preparation for it?”

Not all mythology was written with the intricate plots and tales of the Greek.  In Etruscan mythology, Charun was with good cause known as the “Demon of Death” and often appeared with Vanth, a goddess of the underworld.  His role in death and the harvesting of souls was a efficient but not subtle.  When someone was deemed ready to die, Charun would appear before them and smash their skull with his great hammer until they were dead.  He and Vanth would then take the soul to the underworld; those souls declared evil or unworthy, Charun would punish by taking up his hammer, repeatedly striking them for all eternity.

Doom

Doom (pronounced doom)

(1) Fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune.

(2) Ruin; death.

(3) A judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one.

(4) In Christian eschatology, the Last Judgment, at the end of days.

Pre 900: From the Middle English dome & doome from the Old English dōm (a law, statute, decree; administration of justice, judgment; justice, equity, righteousness; condemnation) from the Proto-Germanic domaz (source also of the Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, the Old Norse domr, the Old High German tuom (judgment, decree), the Gothic doms (discernment, distinction), possibly from the primitive Indo-European root dhe- (to set, place, put, do), (source also of the Sanskrit dhā́man (custom or law), the Greek themis (law) and the Lithuanian domė (attention)).  It was with the Old Norse dōmr (judgement), the Old High German tuom (condition) and the Gothic dōms (sentence).  A book of laws in Old English was a dombec. 

In all its original forms, it seems to have been used in a neutral sense but sometimes also "a decision determining fate or fortune, irrevocable destiny."  The Modern adverse sense of "fate, ruin, destruction" began in the early fourteenth century and evolved into its general sense after circa 1600, influenced by doomsday and the finality of the Christian Judgment. The "crack of doom" is the last trump, the signal for the dissolution of all things and the finality of the Christian Judgment Day, is most memorably evoked in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel 7:7-8.

(7) Doom has come upon you, upon you who dwell in the land. The time has come! The day is near! There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.

(8) I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.

Doom Paintings

Doom paintings are the vivid depictions of the Last Judgment, that moment in Christian eschatology when Christ judges souls and send them either to Heaven or Hell.  They became popular in medieval English churches as a form of graphical advertising to an often illiterate congregation, dramatizing the difference between rapture of heaven and the agonies of hell, consequences of a life of virtue or wickedness.  During the English Reformation, many doom paintings were destroyed, thought by the new order rather too lavishly Romish.

Weltgericht (Last Judgement) (circa 1435)); Tempera on oak triptych by German artist Stefan Lochner (c1410–1451).