druzhinan.
/druːˈʒiːnə/ 1. Russian History. The personal bodyguard of a prince.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > subjection > service > servant > retainer or follower > [noun] > armed retainer or bodyguard
wardecorpsa1330
watchmena1483
pensioner1600
trabant1617
bodyguard1703
druzhina1879
soshi1977
1879 L. B. Lang tr. Rambaud's Hist. Russia I. v. 82 The prince in the middle of his droujina seems to be only the first among his equals.
1905 R. N. Bain First Romanovs i. 4 The old Druzhina of boyars, no longer nomadic.
1959 Chambers's Encycl. II. 479/2 Boyars were the highest class of Russian society from the time of the Kiev princes to Peter the Great. Originally the superior members of the prince's bodyguard (druzhina) and his intimate advisers, they were later appointed as administrators or military leaders.
1985 Britain–USSR Dec. 6/1 From the many references to falconry it may be assumed that he was a member of, or close to, the princely druzhina.
2. In the former Soviet Union, a detachment of the People's Militia, a volunteer police force established in the late 1950s. Now Historical.
ΘΚΠ
society > law > law enforcement > law-enforcement or peace-officer > [noun] > specific volunteer police force
druzhina1959
1959 Soviet Stud. Oct. 214 According to an interview given by the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs..druzhiny have already been formed in most of the large industrial enterprises and state and collective farms.
1961 Times 5 Apr. 8/6 The search for more convenient and less offensive organs to control the people resulted in..druzhinas or voluntary police detachments.
1963 Soviet Stud. 14 383 The druzhina is reported to have appeared first in 1958, in Leningrad. It received official sanction in a decree..of 2 March 1959.
1970 Harari & Hayward tr. Amalrik's Involuntary Journey to Siberia i. 23 Druzhiny: Volunteer auxiliary police units which were formed in the early years of Khruschev's rule to fight hooliganism and other petty crime. They swiftly acquired a reputation for lawlessness themselves.
Derivatives
druˈzhinnik n. (pl. druzhinniki) a member of a druzhina (sense 2).
ΘΚΠ
society > law > law enforcement > law-enforcement or peace-officer > [noun] > specific volunteer police force > member of
druzhinnik1963
1963 Soviet Stud. Apr. 384 The young druzhinnik, equipped with a red armband and a wide but ill-defined authority, may contribute to maintaining public order; but he may also terrorize his contemporaries.
1970 Times 27 June 7/6 The Druzhinniki..assist the police in preventing crime, combating hooliganism and drunkenness, and controlling crowds. They are also to be found guarding courtrooms during political trials.
1974 T. P. Whitney tr. A. Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipel. I. i. xi. 440 Capital punishment was restored for..threatening the lives of (shaking a fist at) policemen or Communist vigilantes, the so-called ‘druzhinniki’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1993; most recently modified version published online March 2021).
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n.1879