Веселие Руси: История алкогольной проблемы в России by И. Р. Такала (review)

Irina Takala’s book, The Joy of Rus’: History of the Alcohol Problem in Russia, on the history of alcohol consumption and politics in Russia does not expose a new argument. In concert with works by, for example, Aleksandr Nikishin,¹ Sonja Margolina,² and more recently Mark Schrad,³ Takala sets herself the task of demystifying the cliché about Russian drinking. Tackling the issue from a historical perspective, the author, just as those who have written on the issue to date, draws a close connection between state politics and the development of alcohol trade and consumption. Takala argues that the Russian state’s use of alcohol as a source of budget revenues influenced rulers’ interest in and indirect promotion of wide alcohol consumption. Although she does not state it directly, the material also suggests that alcohol was not only a fiscal instrument but also a political one that secured the loyalty of those involved in trade.

While the argument is not novel, this is a fascinating book. Its strength lies in its detail. Takala draws on a wide range of primary sources and tells us, among other things, what Russian prominent intellectuals such as Mikhail Lomonosov, Aleksandr Radishchev, or Dmitrii Mendeleev thought about the causes of heavy drinking in Russia and the ways of alleviating this evil. Written in an elegant and accessible way, the book provides a survey of how various rulers dealt with the issue of alcohol production, trade, and consumption and what this meant for Russian society.

The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter gives a broad overview of the history of alcohol in human history. Its main point is that alcohol consumption is old and universal. In Russia, alcohol consumption was historically a longtime privilege of the elite, serving primarily sacral and communal purposes for the wider population. Up until the fourteenth century, when Russians were first introduced to wine, they drank mainly honeybased spirits and beer. The immediate response by the elite to the introduction of wine was negative: consumption of wine was forbidden as harmful. The Russian version of contemporary vodka at the time was already distilled but was used for medicinal purposes only. It was in the fifteenth century that the less labor-intensive grain spirits drove out previous labor-intensive alcoholic beverages.

In the second chapter, Takala draws a relationship between the rise of the Muscovy tsardom and then St. Petersburg empire and alcohol consumption, from the sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. She first points out that as early as the ninth century, the East Slav princes collected duties on alcohol production. Nevertheless, until the rise of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy was centralized in the fifteenth century, people were free to produce their own alcoholic beverages. It was only in the second half of the fifteenth century, with the consolidation of the authority of the Moscow ruler, that the first attempts were made to centralize the government monopoly on alcohol. It is known that under Ivan III the right to produce alcohol belonged to the state treasury (kazna). Ivan IV initially allowed vodka drinking only to his henchmen oprichniks in the 1560s, and opened drinking taverns known as kabaks. It is then that drinking for the tsar also became a political practice of a public demonstration of loyalty: since one’s drinking strengthened the tsar’s financial might, personal drinking became a stately matter. Takala provides a brief survey of the ways that various rulers dealt with alcohol. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, for example, allowed the production of alcohol only to the privileged classes, using the leasing system (otkup), limiting home production and regulating consumption according to one’s status. Peter I first monopolized alcohol production and trade to raise funds for the Great Northern war, but in 1716 liberalized it, practicing excise taxation. Catherine II made alcohol production exclusively a privilege of the nobility, but leased its trade to private individuals. The Russian monarchs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries modified their alcohol policies using three types of alcohol monopoly: full governmental monopoly of trade and production; leasing the right of production...