Poshlost
Russian literary term for self-satisfied obscenity and bad taste in artistic elements and expressions
Poshlost or poshlost' (Russian: пошлость, IPA: [ˈpoʂləsʲtʲ]) is a pejorative Russian word for amorality, vulgarity, a lack of originality, and/or bad taste. It has been cited as an example of a so-called untranslatable word, because there is no exact single-word English equivalent. It carries much cultural baggage in Russia and has been discussed at length by various writers.
It is derived from the adjective póshlyy (пошлый), which may describe a negative human character trait, a manmade object, or an idea.
Description
Svetlana Boym defines poshlost' as "obscenity and bad taste". She says:
Poshlost' is the Russian version of banality, with a characteristic national flavoring of metaphysics and high morality, and a peculiar conjunction of the sexual and the spiritual. This one word encompasses triviality, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, and a lack of spirituality. The war against poshlost' was a cultural obsession of the Russian and Soviet intelligentsia from the 1860s to 1960s.
It has also been defined as "petty evil or self-satisfied vulgarity".
In his novels, Turgenev "tried to develop a heroic figure who could, with the verve and abandon of a Don Quixote, grapple with the problems of Russian society, who could once and for all overcome 'poshlost', the complacent mediocrity and moral degeneration of his environment".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Poshlost” is russian literary term for self-satisfied obscenity and bad taste in artistic elements and expressions. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Poshlost, Russian and literary, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “russian literary term for self-satisfied obscenity and bad taste in artistic elements and expressions” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106867710. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Poshlost” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.