Rasputitsa: spring and fall periods in which, because of heavy snow or rain, unpaved roads are impassable (possibly related to the name of Rasputin)Ĥ6. Propiska: a Tsarist regulation requiring subjects to remain in their hometownĤ2. Prikaz: originally, a bureaucratic position later, an administrative directiveĤ1. Nomenklatura: the Soviet elite, holding prestigious government and industrial posts (from the Latin term nomenclature, “list of names”)ģ9: Oprichnik: Ivan the Terrible’s brutal bodyguards and henchmenĤ0. Narkompros: a Soviet-era agency responsible for education and culture, later called the Ministry of Enlighteningģ7. Namestnik: an administrator (from the Russian word for “deputy”)ģ6. Matryoshka: a set of Russian nesting dollsģ5. Konyushy: an official responsible for horses used in ceremoniesģ3. Glavlit: the Soviet-era government censorship agencyģ0. Druzhina: a unit of bodyguards and elite troopsĢ7. Troika: a carriage or sleigh pulled by three horses, or a triumvirate (a ruling or administrative trio) Unfamiliar Russian Words (Not Yet Absorbed into English)Ģ6. Taiga: the far northern coniferous forests of both Asia and North America, from a Turkish or Mongolian wordĢ5. Sputnik: a traveling companion also, the name given to a series of Soviet-era satellites, the first objects launched into spaceĢ4. Samizdat: prohibited literature produced clandestinelyĢ3. Sable: a mammal related to the weasel whose sleek black coat was long prized as a clothing material, and, by extension, a synonym for blackĢ1. Ruble: the basic unit of Russian currencyĢ0. Politburo: the Soviet-era primary source of government policy decisions, a truncation of the Russian forms of the words political and bureauġ9. Pogrom: originally, violent persecution of Jews in Russia now, any officially sanctioned attack on a particular groupġ8. Perestroika: the Soviet-era system of reform, from the Russian word for “restructuring”ġ7. Menshevik: the name of the minority Communist faction in Tsarist Russia, originally in power briefly after the Russian Revolution but defeated by the Bolsheviksġ6. Mammoth: a prehistoric mammal, and, by extension, a synonym for massiveġ5. Intelligentsia: the intellectual elite of a society, from the English word intelligentġ4. Gulag: originally an acronym for a Soviet-era system of forced-labor camps it now can refer to any repressive or coercive environment or situationġ2. Glasnost: a policy of political openness and transparency, from the Russian word for “publicity”ġ1. Cossack: a Russian ethnic group associated in popular culture with military prowess and a nomadic society the name, like the ethnic appellation Kazakh, derives from the Turkish word for “nomad”ġ0. Bolshevik: a revolutionary or radical, from name of the majority Communist faction in Tsarist Russia, ultimately from the Russian word for “majority”ħ. Babushka: in Russian, “old woman” in English, a type of scarf commonly worn by babushkasĥ. Apparatchik: a Communist Party member and/or functionary, from the Russian form of the word apparatusģ. Agitprop: artistic political propaganda, from a truncated form of the Russian forms of the words agitation and propagandaĢ. Familiar Russian Words (Absorbed into English)ġ. Some require no annotation, while others should be introduced carefully in context or even glossed which approach to take depends on the content and its audience. (Try referring, for example, to an elite cohort as the nomenklatura or to a petty bureaucrat as a namestnik.)Įither list can be mined for analogous meanings. The latter list is ripe for exploitation in English. Below that you’ll find another set, that one consisting of words known to few, if any, speakers of English who are not bilingual in Russian or familiar with Russian culture. Here is a list of well-known Russian words and their original meanings and later connotations, if any. Others were originally specific to Russian culture but can be applied to analogous Western concepts, such as a reference to an American politician retreating from Washington, DC, to his dacha, or to a comment about a troika of conspirators. Some, like mammoth and sable, are easily assumed to be from a more closely related language. Many Russian words have been appropriated by the English language.
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