The vodka company's website says the name was inspired by the Russian word 'stal' — meaning steel. Stalinskaya, they say, means strength. But the Ukrainian community says its reference to Joseph Stalin is 'offensive.'
Ontario's provincially owned liquor retailer is no longer selling a Romanian vodka brand due to complaints from the Ukrainian community that the name evokes memories of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) was selling Stalinskaya Silver Vodka online and in its stores.
The vodka company's website says the name was inspired by the Russian word "stal" — meaning steel. Stalinskaya, it says, means strength.
But Julia Mikhailova, an associate professor at the University of Toronto , who holds PhD in Slavic Linsguistics, told CBC News that while the word Stalin may mean "made out of steel," the word stalinskya is a direct reference to Stalin himself.
"We are dealing here with the derivational morphology," said Mikhailova, which refers to the process of forming a new word from an existing word.
"Theoretically, I would say that stalinskaya was derived from the word "steel" (stal) only because Stalin was derived from "steel". However, factually, stalinskaya came from the word Stalin."
Alison Smith, a professor at the University of Toronto specializing in the history of Russian food and drink, told CBC News the term "refers explicitly to Stalin the person, even though Joseph Stalin absolutely took the name Stalin (his birth name is Dzhugashvili) because it was linked to the word for steel and it had the connotation of strength."
For Ukrainians, the memories dredged up by the use of the name are anything but positive.
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