subbotnik

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See also: Subbotnik

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian суббо́тник (subbótnik), from суббо́та (subbóta, “Saturday”) + -ник (-nik).

Noun

subbotnik (plural subbotniks or subbotniki)

  1. (historical) A Saturday designated for community volunteer work, such as cleaning the streets, after the October Revolution in Russia.
    • 1985 January 5, Mary McAuley, “Why all’s quiet on campus for the consumer generation”, in The Guardian, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 17, column 7:
      In any society there are the mavericks and you will find them among the Soviet students too—just as you will find the committed Komsomol activists, who take the attendance register, organise the subbotniki (the cleaning-up of the hostels and yards), run the student council, organise political meetings and write references for job applicants).
    • 1994 April 24, Fred Hiatt, “Letter from Russia: Muscovites Take to Streets to Sweep the City Clean”, in The Washington Post‎, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 May 2025:
      Ivanova, a Moscow municipal engineer, joined thousands of other Muscovites who volunteered a few hours to help tidy this littered, muddy capital. They were seeking to revive, in a new guise, the communist tradition of subbotniki – donating one's labor to the state on the Saturday after Vladimir Lenin's birthday.
    • 1994 July 22, Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Dirty cloud over Games: St. Petersburg unkempt”, in The Province, Vancouver, B.C., →ISSN, →OCLC, page A66:
      To clean up areas near the sporting sites, Mayor Anatol Sobchak even revived the communist practice of subbotniki, or ostensible “voluntary” work on Saturdays.
  2. (historical) One who took part in this work.
    • 1949 September, Mary van Kleeck, “Book Reviews: Achievements Under Planning”, in Jessica Smith, editor, Soviet Russia Today, volume 17, number 17, New York, N.Y.: S.R.T. Publishers, →OCLC, page 21, column 3:
      Though the individual was the initiator, his or her success enlisted others in group movements, such as the Subbotniks, who in 1919 gave every Saturday (Subbota) without pay to work on the railroads, repairing cars and engines and loading freight;
    • 1975 April 20, UPI , “Moscow gets a spring cleaning”, in Democrat and Chronicle, 143rd year, Rochester, N.Y.: Gannett Co., Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6A, column 4:
      Despite the element of coercion and a week of haranguing in the press, most subbotniki appeared to be taking their duties with good humor.
    • 2004, Steven Rosefielde, “Subbotnik”, in James R Millar, editor, Encyclopedia of Russian History, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Reference USA, →ISBN, page 1492, column 1:
      Communist subbotniki (Communist Volunteer Saturday Workers) were shockworkers who volunteered their free Saturdays for the Bolshevik cause. Subbotniki were lauded as heroes of socialist labor, as prototypes of the new unselfish man, and role models for the working class.
  3. (often capitalized) A member of a Russian sect of Sabbath keepers / Sabbatarians.
    • 1968, Donald W Treadgold, “The Peasant and Religion”, in Wayne S Vucinich, editor, The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 91:
      The Molokane split into Subbotniki (Saturday-observers) and Voskresniki (Sunday-observers). Although the former were by far the less numerous wing, they themselves produced several subgroups. Many Subbotniki thought of themselves as the “New Israel” and rejected the notion that Jesus was God in any sense; but they also rejected the Talmud and the notion that a Messiah was to be expected who would be a king as well as prophet. In contrast, the Subbotniki of the Caucasus were closer to Judaism; they accepted the Talmud, expected a Messiah-king, and used Jewish prayers in Russian translation.
    • 1981, Anton S Beliajeff, “Molokane”, in Joseph L Wieczynski, editor, The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, volumes 23 , Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, →ISBN, page 23:
      The Subbotniki (Sabbatarians), for example, adhere to many Jewish observances and accept Jesus only as a prophet. In this, they differ from the predominant Voskresniki (Sunday observers).
    • 1997, Glennys Young, “Introduction”, in Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN, footnote 1, page 1:
      Although the number of sectarians grew in the period 1917–28, some groups, such as the Dukhobors, Molokans, Subbotniki, and Khristoverie, actually lost members during this time.
    • 2023, Gennady Estraikh, “Growing Pains”, in The History of Birobidzhan: Building a Soviet Jewish Homeland in Siberia (Russian Shorts), London: Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 43:
      Young Birobidzhaners were bemused when a group of ethnically Slavic subbotniks, or Sabbatarians, settled in one of the villages of the JAR, but would not work on Saturday, because they were committed to living by Biblical law. The Polish Jewish activist Perelman encountered, or chose to see, in Birobidzhan only several people, all of them subbotniks, who abjured pork.

See also

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia