After the attack on Ukraine, Russia’s reputation will be destroyed for a long time. All those Russians and Russian-Germans who did not want this war are now, tragically, often considered outlaws. In the Bavarian varieties of the German language, the term Russ has long been known, with both positive and negative connotations. First of all, “the Russ” continued to stir up fears after the World War, especially after it invaded Prague in 1968. This distress was evoked above all in folk songs. “The soot that’s coming is foreseeable,” predicted Biermösl Blosn in the 1980s. “When the Russ comes, then it’s over,” sang the singer-songwriter Georg Ringsgwandl, and the satirist Gerhard Polt had a certain Schorsch complain: “The Russ, when it comes, it will come differently than you imagined. That’s great – and then eat up with the free beer.”
In fact, the keyword Russ appeared in various dictionaries as early as 200 years ago. Johann Andreas Schmeller understood it to mean “annoying flies that, having come from abroad, have made themselves at home in some places”. What else the linguist Schmeller documented in the distant past is astounding. The Russ is “a rude rascal and lout who likes to ruin everything he gets to do with”.
Half a century ago, for the Lower Bavarian Germanist Hans Schlappinger, a Russ was “a person of male or female sex who is characterized by endurance, tenacity and resistance to ailments.” Even today in some Bavarian villages people like to be called “Russ” because of their habitus. During the First World War, recruits who were still unpolished were called Russians. In some places May Beetles were also nicknamed Russ.
The mixture of wheat beer and lemonade or carbonated water is still very popular today. This Russnmass (or Russnhoibe) probably goes back to the revolution of 1918/19. The revolutionaries, who had set up their main camp in Munich’s Mathäserbräu, drank their beer there in order to stay sane. These men were called Russians, whether they were Russians or not, and whatever they drank was henceforth also Russian.