Adjacent Words

Duma definitions

	Tweet

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a legislative body in the ruling assembly of Russia and of some other republics in the former USSR

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Russian, from Old Russian, council, thought, probably of Germanic origin; akin to Old English d?m judgment — more at doom Date: 1870 a representative council in Russia; especially often capitalized the principal legislative assembly in Russia from 1906 to 1917 and since 1993

Britannica Concise

("State Assembly") Elected legislative body that, with the State Council, constituted the imperial Russian legislature (1906-17). It had only limited power to control spending and initiate legislation, and the four Dumas that convened (1906, 1907, 1907-12, 1912-17) rarely enjoyed the cooperation of the ministers or the emperor, who retained the right to rule by decree when the Duma was not in session. In the Soviet era, soviets were the basic unit of government. After the fall of the Soviet Union (1991), the Russian parliament (composed of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet) had legislative responsibilities until its conflicts with Pres. B. Yeltsin reached a crisis in 1993. Parliament's revolt was put down by military force, and a new constitution established a new parliament composed of a Federation Council (in which all 89 of Russia's republics and regions have equal representation) and a Duma, with 450 members elected through proportional representation on a party basis and through single-member constituencies. The president may override and even dissolve the legislature under certain circumstances.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. hist. a Russian council of State, esp. the elected body existing between 1905 and 1917. Etymology: Russ.: orig. an elective municipal council