• Я покажу вам кузькину мать!
[ya pa-ka-zhu vam kuz'-ki-nu mat']
Literally: I'll show you Kuzma's mother!

🔻This Khrushchev's famous phrase, delivered at the UN Assembly, was translated literally as 'Kuzma's mother.'

🔻The meaning of the phrase was completely unclear, lending the threat a sinister quality. Subsequently, the expression 'Kuzma's mother' was also used to refer to the Soviet Union's atomic bombs.

Meaning:
This is an expression of an unspecified threat or punishment, such as "to teach someone a lesson", "to punish someone in a brutal way".

🔻It entered the history of the foreign relations of the Soviet Union as part of the image of Nikita Khrushchev, along with the shoe-banging incident.

PS despite the fact that Кузька is a diminutive form from the proper name Кузьма, in the phrase 'показать кузькину мать' it is written with a small letter as it doesn't literally refer to Kuzma's mother.

❓Have you ever heard this expression?

#phraseology
#spoken_Russian
#USSR

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