Anecdote
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An {anecdote} is a {short and amusing} or {interesting account}, {which may depict a {real incident} or {person}. Anecdotes can be as brief as the {setting} and {provocation} of a bon mot (good word) An anecdote is always presented as based in a {real incident} {involving actual persons}, whether {famous or not}, usually in an {identifiable place}. However, over time, {modification in reuse} may convert a particular anecdote to a {fictional piece}, one that is retold but is "too good to be true".
Sometimes humorous, {anecdotes are not jokes}, because their primary purpose is not simply to evoke laughter, but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself, or to delineate a character trait in such a light that it strikes in a flash of insight to its very essence. Novalis observed "An anecdote is a {historical element} — a {historical molecule} or {epigram}". A brief monologue {beginning} "A man pops in a bar..." will be a joke. A brief monologue {beginning} "{Once} J. Edgar Hoover popped in a bar..." will be an anecdote. An anecdote thus is closer to the tradition of the parable than the {patently invented fable with its animal characters and generic human figures}— but it is distinct from the parable in the historical specificity which it claims.
{Anecdotes are often of {satirical nature}. {Under the {authoritarian regime} in the {Soviet Union} numerous {political anecdotes} circulating in {society} were the only way to reveal and denounce vices of the {political system} and its {leaders}. They made fun of such personalities as Vladimir Lenin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and other {Soviet leaders}. In contemporary {Russia there are many anecdotes} about Vladimir Putin. The word 'anecdote' (in Greek: "unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from {Procopius of Caesarea}, the biographer of Justinian I, who produced a work entitled {Ἀνέκδοτα} (Anekdota, {variously translated as Unpublished} {Memoirs} or {Secret History}), which is {primarily a collection of short incidents} from the {private life} of the {Byzantine court} which was inherited from the Roman Empire, (Byzantine Empire). Gradually, the term anecdote came to be {applied to} {any short tale} {utilized} to {emphasize or {illustrate} {whatever point} the author wished to make.
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Examples of Anecdotes
