subbotniki

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.
   • 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
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...
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...