kulak

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• koulak
• Kulak

Etymology

1877. From Russian кулак (kulák, “fist; tight-fisted person”), from Turkic. Compare also Russian раскулачивание (raskuláčivanie, “dekulakization”), подкулачник (podkuláčnik, “subkulak”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ˈkuːlak/

Noun

kulak (plural kulaks or kulaki)

1. (historical) A prosperous peasant in the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, who owned land and could hire workers.
   • 2002, Christopher Hitchens, "Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight", The Atlantic, Sep 2002:

     The "internal organs", as the CHEKA and the GPU and the KGB used to style themselves, were asked to police the mind for heresy as much as to torture kulaks to relinquish the food they withheld from the cities.

Usage notes

During Soviet state collectivization of farming in the 1920s–30s the label kulak, implying “tight-fisted”, was applied pejoratively to attack land-owning peasants in general.

Related terms

• kulakism
• dekulakisation, de-kulakisation
• dekulakization, de-kulakization
• kulakisation, kulakization
• self-dekulakisation, self-dekulakization
• subkulak

Translations

a prosperous peasant

Arabic: كولاك (ar) (kulaak) m., قولاق (ar) (qulaaq) m. Armenian: կուլակ (hy) (kulak) Belarusian: кулак (be) (kulák) m. Bulgarian: кулак (bg) (kulák) m. Chinese: Mandarin: 富農 (cmn), 富农 (cmn) (fùnóng) French: koulak (fr) m. German: Kulak (de) m. Greek: κουλάκος (el) (koulákos) m. Hindi: कूलाक (hi) (kūlāk) Hungarian: kulák (hu) Japanese: クラーク (ja) (kurāku), 富農 (ja) (ふのう, funō)

Korean: 쿨라크 (ko) (kullakeu), 부농 (ko) (bunong) (富農 (ko)) Macedonian: кулак (mk) (kulák) m. Persian: کولاک (fa) Polish: kułak (pl) m. Russian: кулак (ru) (kulák) m. Serbo-Croatian: кулак (sh) m., kulak (sh) m. Spanish: kulak (es) m. Ukrainian: куркуль (uk) (kurkúl’) m. (term used during collectivisation, offensive), кулак (uk) (kulák) m. (original term) Vietnamese: phú nông (vi) (富農 (vi)), cu-lắc (vi)

Quotations

• For examples of the usage of this term see the citations page.

References

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Tenth Edition 1997

---

Turkish

Etymology

From Old Turkic kulkak (“ear”), from Proto-Turkic *Kul-kak (“ear”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kʰuläk/
• Hyphenation: ku‧lak

Noun

kulak

1. ear

Declension

declension of kulak

	singular (tekil)	plural (çoğul)
nominative (yalın)	kulak	kulaklar
definite accusative (belirtme)	kulağı	kulakları
dative (yönelme)	kulağa	kulaklara
locative (bulunma)	kulakta	kulaklarda
ablative (çıkma)	kulaktan	kulaklardan
genitive (tamlayan)	kulağın	kulakların