Subbotnik
The Subbotnik (from Russian суббота subbota , German ' Saturday / Saturday ' ) is a term that originated in Soviet Russia for an unpaid work on Saturday, which was adopted in the linguistic usage in the GDR .
Lenin used the word Subbotnik in June 1919 in the article The Great Initiative ( Великий почин Veliki pochin ), where it appears in the subtitle: On the heroism of the workers in the hinterland. On the occasion of the «Communist Subbotniks» ( О героизме рабочих в тылу. По поводу «коммунистических субботников» O geroisme рабочих в тылу . Lenin wrote this article after the communists and their supporters at the Moscow - Kazan Railway decided in 1919 to carry out such "communist subbotniks" to restore the economy as soon as possible . Legend has it that 14 workers and one female worker started this spontaneously in April 1919.
In the GDR, voluntariness was emphasized, but not infrequently there was considerable pressure for these work assignments. So some official goodwill was made dependent on participation in these sub-botniks - which was probably very well observed and registered . Some people who needed a larger apartment, were looking for a better job or even wanted a telephone connection, hoped to earn “plus points” for their “socialist behavior”.
In the post-war period, the Subbotniks were events for reconstruction, but later they often degenerated into bureaucratic activism, and then locally often due to a lack of material or ideas simply to compulsory exercises. By the mid-1980s at the latest, these events no longer took place in many places. The designation remained common for work assignments of the "house community" in front garden maintenance or joint repairs, such as those that took place within the framework of the National Economic Mass Initiative (VMI).
In the GDR , paid special shifts on Saturdays were later ironically called that. In Czechoslovakia there was a special name for the action z .
Today the term subbotnik is used again in some East German cities. This usually describes an annual spring cleaning in the cities, during which, for example, rubbish is removed and streets are swept.
In some cities in Russia there are still subbotnik deployments today. But these really take place on a voluntary basis and often revolve around rubbish collection campaigns.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ As soon as Moscow has got rid of its masses of snow, it smells like the solvents department of a hardware store - the reason for this is a special ritual , NZZ, May 10, 2019
- ↑ Subbotnik in the cemetery near SMC Märkische Onlinezeitung, April 14, 2014.
- ↑ Subbotnik - An old tradition becomes popular again on www.mdz-moskau.eu, accessed on July 14, 2019