The Discreet Charm of Avos

Fatalism (фатализм) is widely considered one of the most indispensable Russian character traits. Human lives are geared in one direction or other by fate (судьба), chance (случай), luck (удача) and other mysterious, supernatural (сверхъестественный) forces. A person is not responsible for her own actions; she can only watch life take unpredictable (непредсказуемый) twists and turns and either exclaim blissfully “Как мне повезло!” (“How lucky I am!”) or sigh with regret, “Как меня угораздило!” (“How could I have ended up this way!”).

Note the use of the impersonal, passive voice here: the pronoun is not я (I), but меня (me).

I lost my wallet (“Я потерял кошелёк”). No, why take the blame for the wallet’s mysterious disappearance? There is always a safer way to put it. The wallet was lost (“Кошелёк потерялся”). Fate should have it this way. “Так получилось.”

Our friends got married but soon they divorced. Why? “У них не сложилось” (“It didn’t work out between them”). A mysterious something brought them apart.

“Why didn’t you come to the party last night? We were waiting for you.” “Я собирался, но не получилось” (“I was planning to come, but it did not work out”). “Как-то не сложилось” (“Somehow it just didn’t work out”).

But, beyond the passive voice, the fatalist’s key verbal talisman is the untranslateable авось.

You have health problems and need to see the doctor. Why bother? “Авось, само пройдёт” (“It could be that, the problem will cure itself”).

You are carrying some antiques through customs at Sheremetyevo, but decide to take the green corridor to save yourself the trouble of dealing with officials. “Авось, проскочу.” (“Hopefully, I will slip though.”)

There have been SARS cases in Russia. But, hopefully, not in our town. “Авось, пронесёт.” (“With luck, it may pass us by.”)

I just had some mushrooms that may have been poisonous. But they might not have been. “Авось, обойдётся.” (“God-willing, the worst won’t happen.”)

To do something на авось usually means to do something very risky or outright insane, on the assumption that some mysterious force will deter the inevitable failure or harm.

The essence of the word авось is perhaps best explained by the following archaic saying, “Не во всякой туче гром; а и гром да не грянет; а и грянет, да не по нас; а и по нас – авось не убьёт.” (“There is not thunder in every cloud, and even if there is thunder, it may not strike, and even if it does strike, then it won’t hit us, and even if it does hit us, hopefully it won’t kill us.”) And if you get the sense of авось from this, you can learn this archaic tongue-twister: “Поавоськаем: авось, до чего-нибудь доавоськаемся.” (“Lets авось a bit: авось, we will авось something out of it.”)

In Soviet times, авось produced a neologism – авоська – a folding string-bag carried in one’s bag or purse just in case (на всякий случай) a deficit item turned up on sale [see Survival Russian in Russian Life, September/October 2004].

An expression synonymous with авось is кривая вывезет (literally, “a curve shall carry one through”). Linguists suggest that the expression originally meant that, by setting out on a journey on a lame horse, one is taking a chance, acting on an авось.

While the word авось is not used very frequently in contemporary speech, all the impersonal verb-forms associated with it are quite common. Пронесло. (Trouble passed by.) Обошлось. (It turned out all right.)

As for авось, it is often used sarcastically, to mock the fatalist mentality. “Понадеялся на русский авось” – he hoped for the Russian avos. Russians or those here long-term may voice skepticism about our national авось, but deep inside they worship this deity of chance. As Vladimir Dal points out in his dictionary:

“Авось не бог, а полбога есть.” “Avos is not god, but it is a demigod.”