If you didn’t understand the second half of the title, don’t worry, I’ll explain.
As you may be aware, every year Google produces its Zeitgeist, a list of the most popular search terms over the past year in each of the countries, in which it has its presence. In Britain, people search for the iPhone, the iPlayer, Facebook and things like that.
In Poland, they look for social networking sites as well, although different ones (Nasza Klasa, a cross between Facebook and Friends Reunited), but also terms like Pudelek (a celeb gossip site), Mam Talent (the Polish equivalent of Britain’s Got Talent) and, er, Jozin z Bazin.
Now, I’m not an expert on Jozin, so let me quote Wikipedia here:
Jožin z bažin (originally 1978) is a song by Czech musician and comedian Ivan Mládek, and is one of his best known songs. He even called it the “National Anthem” of his Countryshows. In January 2008, the song became popular in Poland and Hungary, winning several radio hitlists. It is also popular in Austria and Russia, sporting a cult following in blogs and several versions of translations.
Hold on, it’s getting better:
The song is a surreal tale of a mysterious man-eating (especially those coming from Prague) monster (Jožin z bažin, Joe from the swamps) living in the swamps. He could be defeated only with the use of a cropduster.
I know people who got SERIOUSLY addicted to this song. I guess the reason why it became so popular in Poland must be because to us the Czech language is very funny. (What an un-PC thing to say.)
Many people wrongly assume that Polish, Russian and/or Czech are all the same. No, they are not. (Although Polish and Czech both belong to the West Slavic sub-branch of the Indo-European languages). Czech is similar in many ways, yet different in so many others, which to a Polish ear makes it quirky, funny, but also very warm.
But in this case, it’s not just the language. If you watch the video below, you’ll probably quickly understand why it’s achieved a cult status…
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