voskresnik

• Voskresnik

From Russian воскре́сник (voskrésnik), from Russian воскресе́нье (voskresénʹje, “Sunday”) + -ник (-nik).

voskresnik (plural voskresniks or voskresniki)

1. (historical) A Sunday designated for community volunteer work, such as cleaning the streets, after the October Revolution in Russia.
   • 1980 September 12, A[ugusts] E[duardovich] Voss, translated by Joint Publications Research Service, “Voss on Latvian Economy, Brezhnev Phone Conversation”, in USSR Report: Political and Sociological Affairs (JPRS 76420), number 1063, Arlington, Va.: Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →OCLC, page 12:

     It is necessary to use such forms of sponsorship help as subbotniki and voskresniki [work without pay donated to the state on weekends], more intensively and rationally.

   • 1986 June 23, A.P. Strogov, translated by Joint Publications Research Service, “Committees for the Defense of the Sandinist Revolution”, in USSR Report: International Affairs (JPRS-UIA-86-030), Arlington, Va.: Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →OCLC, page 103:

     The activities of the committees also include the organization of unpaid work days (subbotniki and voskresniki) to build and repair schools, health care institutions, roads and other communal facilities.

   • 2016, Andrew Bromfield, Rose France, Anthony Hippisley, “The Diary of Misha Tikhomirov”, in Children of War: Diaries 1941–1945, Moscow: Argumenty i fakty, AIF Kind Heart Charitable Foundation, →ISBN, part 1 (Leningrad: The Siege), footnote 1, page 145:

     In the Soviet era it was common for working people to be sent on voluntary work sessions on Saturday and Sunday (subbotniki and voskresniki) to carry out community work.

2. (historical) One who took part in this work.
   • 1943 August, Madelin Blitzstein, “Youth Fights for Russia”, in Coburn Gilman, editor, Travel, volume 81, number 4, East Stroudsburg, Pa.: Robert M[edill] McBride & Company, page 11, column 1:

     It was young boys and girls in their teens, through their vast organization, the Komsomol, who initiated the movement of the Voskresniki, or voluntary Sunday workers, which was tried out for the first time on Sunday, August 16, 1941.

   • 2004, Steven Rosefielde, “Subbotnik”, in James R[obert] Millar, editor, Encyclopedia of Russian History, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Reference USA, →ISBN, page 1492, column 1:

     During World War II, the KS and voskresniki (Sunday volunteers) are said to have inspired the war effort.

   • 2005, Christopher Morgan, Irina Orlova, “The Leningrad Affair”, in Saving the Tsar’s Palaces, Clifton upon Teme, Worcestershire: Polperro Heritage Press, →ISBN, page 99:

     In one way and another, the people were now looking forward to a better future, to a renaissance of their city. They had earned it. It was this euphoria that brought the voskresniks in their thousands to help clear the parks and sort through the rubble, and which brought the crowds into the streets to cheer Samson on his way.

3. (often capitalized) A member of a Russian sect of Sunday observers.
   • 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, pages 91–92:

     The Molokane split into Subbotniki (Saturday-observers) and Voskresniki (Sunday-observers). […] Within the Voskresniki, a group following Maksim Popov, a peasant of Samara, organized a colony practicing primitive communism, which did not last long.

   • 1981, Anton S[erge] Beliajeff, “Molokane”, in Joseph L[eon] Wieczynski, editor, The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, volume 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, “Burnt by the Heavens”, in Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, →ISBN, footnote 54, page 90:

     The Dukhobors in turn gave rise to other sects whose members preserved in somewhat subdued form this radical spiritualism, including the Molokane (Milk Drinkers), Subbotniki (Saturday observers), Voskresniki (Sunday observers), and Pryguny (Jumpers).

   • 2009, Joseph Bradley, “Government and the Public Trust: The Russian Technical Society and Education for Industry”, in Voluntary Associations in Tsarist Russia: Science, Patriotism, and Civil Society, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, pages 198–199:

     According to Ia. V. Abramov, the chronicler of the Sunday school movement, the ninth section, attended predominantly by “Sunday people” (voskresniki), became a de facto congress on Sunday schools and “clarified many matters to the participants, as well as united and energized them.”

• subbotnik