Нулевые годы: the first decade of the 21st century; the “naughts/noughts”

So you’re sitting around the table with your friends, reminiscing about times gone by. Someone says: В восьмидесятые годы я был в Тбилиси (I was in Tbilisi in the 1980s). В семидесятые и восьмидесятые годы все посольства в Москве закупали финские продукты (In the 1970s and 1980s, all the embassies in Moscow imported food from Finland). Everything is fine until you get into a discussion of the first and second decades of a century. Then both Russian and English fall apart.

According to Russian-language specialists, the way to describe the years from 10 to 20 of any century is: десятые годы. These years can be called “the teens” in English, although that might confuse the age of a person and the age of the century. For example: Когда Маяковский в начале десятых годов приехал в Петербург, он подружился с Мандельштамом (When Mayakovsky moved to St. Petersburg at the beginning of the teens, he befriended Mandelshtam). It might be clearer in English to say: When Mayakovsky moved to St. Petersburg at the start of the second decade …  

If you ask your Russian friends, colleagues, spouse and in-laws about this, eight out of 10 of them will confess that they never say десятые годы in reference to the last century. History provided other convenient time markers, so people say: дореволюционные годы (pre-Revolutionary years); довоенные годы (prewar years); or годы до Первой мировой войны (the years before World War I). They might also say: первые десятилетия двадцатого века (the first decades of the 20th century); or even simply: начало двадцатого века (the early 20th century).

How about the first decade of a century? In English, you can find a few people who call them the “oughts” (although pedants insist they should be called the “noughts”): “Their 1970s schoolhouses, built in anticipation of traditional Catholic birth rates, were emptying through the nineties and oughts.” In Russian, smart specialists assert: Десятилетие 1900-1910 принято называть девятисотыми годами (It is commonly accepted to call the decade of 1900-1910 “the nine hundred years.”)

“Commonly accepted”? Well, I found a few — a very few — examples. Девятисотые годы — блестящая эпоха! (The oughts of the 20th century — what a magnificent epoch!) These same experts tell you that the first 10 years of the 19th century are called восьмисотые (literally, “the eight hundred years”) and the first 10 years of the current century are двухтысячные (literally, “the two thousand years”). Apparently it doesn’t bother the specialists that we went from the 900 years to the 2,000 years in a mere century.

Neither does it bother the specialists that virtually no one except them uses these terms. My friends hooted. They say: начало века (start of the century); первое десятилетие (first decade); первые годы века (first years of the century); or на рубеже века (at the turn of the century).

Thanks to today’s wits, it’s easier to describe this present century in Russian. The first decade has been dubbed нулевые годы (literally, “the noughts”). Most people seem to use the phrase to suggest обнуление (nullification) of democratic processes. For them, they are the “nothing years” — the “noughty” years. But others use the phrase to mean starting afresh — counting up from point zero. And now? Мы входим в десятые годы XXI века (We’re entering the teens of the 21st century).

Let’s check back in 50 years to see if the name sticks.

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.