(now historical) A traditionalvillagecommunity in ImperialRussia, charaterised by self-government and collectivist control of local lands.[from 19th c.]
1878, Donald Mackenzie Wallace,Russia, volumes1-3, page179:
[T]he constitution of the village[…] was a subject which specially interested me, because I was aware that theMir is the most peculiar of Russian institutions.
R. Van Bergen,The Story of Russia, page 190:
Themir was the only means to prevent this, and mir meant serfdom under another name. The landowners disposed of their land, or of so much as was required to support the peasants, not to individuals but to the mir.
2007,Tim Blanning,The Pursuit of Glory, Penguin, published2008, page169:
Consisting of village elders elected by the male heads of household, themir conducted almost all peasant business, fixing the dates for the agricultural year, deciding what, when and how crops should be grown, distributing plots of land on the open fields, collecting taxes and enforcing basic community discipline.
FromMiddle High Germanmir(“we”). The form originated through assimilation ofwir with a preceding verb form and subsequent unetymological segmentation. This is possibly already anOld High German development, since a common Old High German ending of the 1st person plural was-em, thusbittēm wir →*bittē-mir (modernbittenwir(“ask we, do we ask”)). The contraction as such is definitely old, though the common form of assimilation, both in written Old High German and written Middle High German, is through loss of the nasal:bittē wir. The form withmir may either be a younger development in Middle High German, or a more colloquial form that only later appeared in writing. Older age is suggested by the great dominance ofmir throughout modern dialects ofHigh German. CompareYiddishמיר(mir),Luxembourgishmir. Compare alsoOld Norsemit(“we two”),Norwegian Nynorskme(“we”).
16th century / 1874,Alsfelder Passionsspiel mit Wörterbuch herausgegeben von C. W. M. Grein, p. 13 l. 458f. [note: the text also hasmer for 1st person plural nominative]:
Mir willen widder in die helle, Die armen sele siden und quellen.
FromOld High Germanwir through assimilation with a preceding verb ending (-n w- >-m-) and subsequent unetymological segmentation. SeeGermanmir (etymology 2) for the details. Compare alsoLuxembourgishdir(“you”), in which a similar development took place.
Wanda Decyk-Zięba, editor (2018-2022), “mir”, inDydaktyczny Słownik Etymologiczno-historyczny Języka Polskiego [A Didactic, Historical, Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish),→ISBN
Dr Nadmorski (Józef Łęgowski) (1889) “mir”, in “Spis wyrazów właściwych gwarze malborskiej i kociewskiej”, inWisła. Miesięcznik Geograficzno-Etnograficzny (in Polish), volume3 z.4, page746
Władysław Siarkowski (1891) “mir”, in “Słowniczek gwary ludowej z okolic Pińczowa”, inSprawozdania Komisyi Językowej Akademii Umiejętności (in Polish), volume 4, page337
centar grada je oaza mira i zelenila ―city center is an oasis of peace and greenery
mirovna konferencija ―peace conference
1996, United Nations, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Serbian”, inUDHR in Unicode[1], archived fromthe original on27 July 2021:
Pošto je priznavanje urođenog dostojanstva i jednakih i neotuđivih prava svih članova ljudske porodice temelj slobode, pravde imira u svetu;
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice andpeace in the world,