Toska: Miserable Misery for Miserablists

Has everyone heard about toska, a Russian word for a type of misery with no English equivalent? It’s one of those words that make language nerds feel superior, sort of like how “schadenfreude” makes dumb people feel when they hear it on TV and congratulate themselves for knowing it.

People seem to revel in the nebulous kind of misery that toska defines. It’s so uniquely Russian, according to some. Here’s how Nobokov describes it:

“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

Now I’m no Russian but some of my  ancestors were. And I experience toska all the time. I think that “miserable,” in the Morrissey sense of miserable, covers all those nuances perfectly well.

When we were teenagers, we used to call this feeling The Pain of Existence, facetiously but sincerely at the same time. What’s the word for THAT, wordists?

Here’s a ridiculous chart someone made while expounding on the ineffableness of the word toska.

Someone else says that Americans are too emotion-averse to experience toska, or to admit feeling it even if they could. I disagree, obviously. It probably depends on your particular social circle. I wouldn’t even want to be friends with anyone who didn’t suffer from  existential malaise or depression at least some of the time.

What do you guys think? Is toska overrated? Is it as good as weltschmerz? What words would you like to hear more of?

It’s fitting that toska reminds me of Tosca, the opera, because my mother loved Puccini and went around the house singing arias. As much as my sister and I begged her to shut up, she persisted. She actually had a beautiful voice. And god knows she was miserable.

Here, enjoy Maria Callas, who exemplifies misery at it’s most exquisitely miserable.