Russian World War 2 Dictionary

The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany, known as the Eastern Front of World War II, continues to attract a number of military historians from different countries around the world. The frontline veterans' reminiscences occupy a prominent place among most important documents of that time. In contrast to official documents, these recollections reproduce the so-called truth of the foxholes, the genuine spirit of the war.

The World World II veterans' reminiscences are full of idiomatic expressions, specialised terms and abbreviations peculiar to that war, and special dictionaries appeared in print and later on Internet web sites. Unlike most of the Allied countries, no war jargon dictionary has been published in Russia. This glossary is intended to begin to fill that gap.

Several sources of the Red Army serviceman's slang were peculiar to the Soviet experience. The upheaval of the 1917 October Revolution and following Civil War, and the fundamental changes wrought by the political and social reforms and campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s, affected the Russian vocabulary substantially. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Red Army soldiers and officers came from rural households, and brought their local idioms and expressions into the trenches, also enriched the war vocabulary. Such expressions came into general circulation and also contributed to Russian wartime slang. Some words also appeared under the harsh conditions of the USSR far rear, where civilians struggled under conditions of hard labour and malnutrition. Lend-lease items entered the soldiers' parlance, often in the form of nicknames. Finally, any army has its traditions and slogans, many of which were revived in the Red Army during World War II.