-yunkers- ?

[Rafiq]

What the hell are they?

[Jimmie Higgins]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/30/%27Miss_Everready%27%2C_color_woodcut_by_Adja_Yunk ers%2C_1952%2C_private_collection.jpg
^Paintings like this by someone called Adja (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adja_Yunkers).

Ok, I don't know but I'm curious.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Are you referring to the now-defunct class of Prussian large landowners from whom were drawn the officer class for the Prussian army? Those were the Junkers.

[Rafiq]

Ten days that shook the world slways uses the word...

[GoddessCleoLover]

Apparently it has a similar connotation, seems to be a Germanic loan word that the Russians applied to the young aristocrats who were military college cadets or junior officers in the Imperial Russian military forces.

[Omsk]

Yes,during 1917 there was a Junkers terrorist act,[ Юнкерский мятеж - a name for further study] the armed attack was defeated by the Red Guard and the peoples commisars.

And yes,Yunker was borrowed from the German language,and had several meanings in Tsarist Russia:

Junker was a military rank for junior officers of dvoryan descent since 1902.
Junker was the rank for a volunteer at military service (вольноопределяющийся, volno-opredelyayuščiysya) in the Russian Navy in 19th and 20th centuries.
Kamer-Junker (cf. German Kammerjunker) was a courtier title defined in the Table of Ranks, generally equating to valet de chambre or Groom of the Chamber.
Junker was a term for students of any military or junker school in between 1864 and 1917.

Junker schools in Russia were introduced in 1864. They were usually located next to district headquarters in a given region. Junker schools prepared low-rank military for officer rank. In 1900, the Russian government established junker infantry schools in Moscow and Kiev, in 1902 - junker cavalry school in Yelizavetgrad. In 1901, the government transformed all former district junker schools into 7 infantry schools (St.Petersburg, Vilna, Tiflis, Odessa, Kazan, Chuguyev, Irkutsk), 1 cavalry school (Tver) and 3 Cossack schools (Novocherkassk, Stavropol, Irkutsk).

To give you a short answer: These schools were breeding grounds for future Tsarist elite and weapons of oppression.

They were completely reactionary.