Word.ws English Dictionary

subbotnik

subbotnik noun: a Saturday designated for community volunteer work, such as cleaning the streets, after the October Revolution in Russia.

Noun (1)

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.
    • 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...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
    • 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...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...
  2. (historical) One who took part in this work.
    • 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; […]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...
    • Despite the element of coercion and a week of haranguing in the press, most subbotniki appeared to be taking their duties with good humor.1975 April 20, UPI [United Press International], “Moscow gets a spring cleaning”, in Democrat and Chronicle, 143rd year, Rochester, N.Y.: Gannett Co., Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6A, column 4
  3. (capitalized, often) A member of a Russian sect of Sabbath keepers / Sabbatarians.
    • 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...1968, Donald W[arren] Treadgold, “The Peasant and Religion”, in Wayne S[piro] Vucinich, editor, The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →LCCN, →OCLC...
    • 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).1981, Anton S[erge] Beliajeff, “Molokane”, in Joseph L[eon] Wieczynski, editor, The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, volumes 23 […], Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press...

Noun (2) capitalized: Subbotnik

Subbotnik (plural Subbotniks or Subbotniki)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of subbotnik.

Examples of subbotnik in a sentence

  • 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 April 24, Fred Hiatt, “Letter from Russia: Muscovites Take to Streets to Sweep the City Clean”, in The Washington Post, Washington...
  • To clean up areas near the sporting sites, Mayor Anatol Sobchak even revived the communist practice of subbotniki, or ostensible “voluntary” work on Saturdays.1994 July 22, Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Dirty cloud over Games: St. Petersburg unkempt”, in The Province, Vancouver, B.C., →ISSN, →OCLC...
  • Communist subbotniki (Communist Volunteer Saturday Workers) were shockworkers who volunteered their free Saturdays for the Bolshevik cause.2004, Steven Rosefielde, “Subbotnik”, in James R[obert] Millar, editor, Encyclopedia of Russian History, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan...
  • The Molokane split into Subbotniki (Saturday-observers) and Voskresniki (Sunday-observers).1968, Donald W[arren] Treadgold, “The Peasant and Religion”, in Wayne S[piro] Vucinich, editor, The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia...

Forms of subbotnik

pluralsubbotniks
pluralsubbotniki
alternative formSubbotnik
pluralSubbotniks
pluralSubbotniki

Origin of subbotnik

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

Questions about subbotnik

What does subbotnik mean?
Subbotnik means a Saturday designated for community volunteer work, such as cleaning the streets, after the October Revolution in Russia.
How do you use subbotnik in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is subbotnik?
Subbotnik is a noun.
What is the plural of subbotnik?
The plural of subbotnik is subbotniks.

Words near subbotnik in the dictionary

  1. subblocks
  2. subboard
  3. subboards
  4. subboreal
  5. subboset
  6. subbotnik
  7. subbotniki
  8. subbotniks
  9. subbottom
  10. subbrachian
  11. subbrachians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subbotnik (page history and authors); Subbotnik (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “subbotnik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/subbotnik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.