Re: USAGE: Translation of Russian _inorodtsy_

Hello,

> I'm reading Geoffrey Hosking's "Russia: People and Empire
> 1552-1917", which the author helpfully tells the reader than
> in late Czarist Russia Jews and Central Asians were classed
> as _inorodtsy_ [...]
The word transparently consists of _in-_ 'another' and _rod_ 'family,
kindred, kin', thus 'one beloning to another people, an alien'. Nowadays
it can be used as a rather bookish and somewhat pejorative term for a
non-Russian (but frankly, most of the time it's used is by all these
'Russian patriots' and 'true Slavs' - neo-Nazis, in a word). Hosking is
right in that it was more of a legal term in pre-Revolutionary Russia. I
don't know about the Central Asians, but the Jews definitely 'enjoyed'
the Cherta Osedlosti, i. e. regions of the country beyond which they
were virtually not permitted to live (probably he writes about it in
detail): most of modern Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania (thus my Jewish
ancestors come from Uman' in the modern Cherkassy region, central
Ukraine).

Pavel

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