Vodka Politics (84 page)

Chapter 4

1
. Samuel Collins,
The Present State of Russia, in a Letter to a Friend at London; Written by an Eminent Person Residing at the Great Czars Court at Mosco for the Space of Nine Years
(London: John Winter, 1671), 63–64. On the tavern revolts of 1648 see
chapter 5
.

2
. Lindsey Hughes,
Peter the Great: A Biography
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), 12; Robert K. Massie,
Peter the Great: His Life and World
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 118.

3
. Joseph T. Fuhrmann,
Tsar Alexis, His Reign and His Russia
(Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International, 1981), 195.

4
. Eugene Schuyler,
Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia: A Study of Historical Biography
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890), 14.

5
. Philip Longworth,
Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias
(London: Secker & Warburg, 1984), 219.

6
. Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 11.

7
. Early foreign travelers often referred to what we now know as vodka as brandy—the closest type of distilled spirits with which they previously were familiar. Schuyler,
Peter the Great
, 57.

8
. Ibid., 59.

9
. Lindsey Hughes,
Sophia: Regent of Russia, 1657–1704
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), 68–69. See also ibid., 58. Schuyler,
Peter the Great
, 68; Lindsey Hughes, “Sophia Alekseyevna and the Moscow Rebellion of 1682,”
Slavonic and East European Review
63, no. 4 (1985): 536.

10
. Hughes,
Sophia
, 231–37.

11
. Schuyler,
Peter the Great
, 325–29. Jakob von Staehlin presents anecdotes concerning the
streltsy
’s alcohol-fueled attempts to assassinate Tsar Peter in
Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great: Collected from the Conversation of Several Persons of Distinction at Petersburgh and Moscow
(London: J. Murray, 1788), 31–32.

12
. John Barrow,
The Life of Peter the Great
(Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo & Co., 1883), 96; Dmitrii N. Borodin,
Kabak i ego proshloe
(St. Petersburg: Vilenchik, 1910), 45, cited in Boris Segal,
Russian Drinking: Use and Abuse of Alcohol in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, 1987), 72.

13
. Literally translated as “new Transfiguration,” the residence was not located far from where the Moscow Lokomotiv soccer stadium stands today. Ernest A. Zitser,
The Transfigured Kingdom: Sacred Parody and Charismatic Authority at the Court of Peter the Great
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004), 4.

14
. Philip John von Strahlenberg,
An Historico-Geographical Description of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia; but More Particularly of Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
(London: J. Brotherton, J. Hazard, W. Meadows, T. Cox, T. Astley, S. Austen, L. Gilliver, and C. Corbet, 1738), 238; Paul Bushkovitch,
Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power, 1671–1725
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 194. In Russian,
nemetskii
has the double meaning of both “German” and “foreign,” so the
nemetskaya sloboda
were not exclusively populated by Germans, but by foreigners of many varieties.

15
. Robert Nisbet Bain,
Slavonic Europe: A Political History of Poland and Russia from 1447 to 1796
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908), 324.

16
. Borodin,
Kabak i ego proshloe
, 45, cited in Segal,
Russian Drinking
, 72. Lindsey Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 418–19. See also Derek Wilson,
Peter the Great
(New York: St. Martin’s, 2010), 41.

17
. Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 36; Wilson,
Peter the Great
, 40.

18
. Massie,
Peter the Great
, 116–17; Yaroslav E. Vodarskii, “Peter I,” in
The Emperors and Empresses of Russia: Rediscovering the Romanovs
, ed. Donald J. Raleigh and A. A. Iskenderov (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 12.

19
. On Lefort having “a great Share in Debauching the
Czar
” see von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 238, 43; James Cracraft,
The Revolution of Peter the Great
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 5. Leibniz quotation from Massie,
Peter the Great
, 118.

20
. “Peter the Great in England,”
The Living Age
47, no. 11 (1855): 468. On general impacts see Arthur MacGregor, “The Tsar in England: Peter the Great’s Visit to London in 1698,”
The Seventeenth Century
19, no. 1 (2004); Anthony Cross,
Peter the Great through British Eyes: Perceptions and Representations of the Tsar since 1698
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 20.

21
. “Peter the Great in England,” 471. See also MacGregor, “Tsar in England”; Wilson,
Peter the Great
, 55. On the monkey incident see Barrow,
Life of Peter the Great
, 88; Leo Loewenson, “Some Details of Peter the Great’s Stay in England in 1698: Neglected English Material,”
Slavonic and East European Review
40, no. 95 (1962): 434.

22
. Zitser,
Transfigured Kingdom
, 46; Massie,
Peter the Great
, 118.

23
. Massie,
Peter the Great
, 118.

24
. von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 249; Alfred Rambaud,
Russia
, 2 vols. (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1902), 2:51–52.

25
. von Staehlin,
Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great
, 354; see also John Banks,
Life of Peter the Great
, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882), 2:220–21; Cross,
Peter the Great through British Eyes
, 44. Anthony Cross’ anecdotes of Peter the Great forcing even his heartiest sailors to get drunk with him originate with a letter of 20 August 1702 from Thomas Hale, a British merchant in Arkhangelsk, found in the British Library, Add. Mss. 33,573, Hale Papers, Correspondence vol. 11 (1661–1814), f. 178.

26
. Walter K. Kelly,
History of Russia, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time
, 2 vols. (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 1:260; Philippe-Paul (comte de) Ségur,
History of Russia and of Peter the Great
(London: Treuttel and Würtz, Treuttel, Jun. and Richter, 1829), 270; Bushkovitch,
Peter the Great
, 233.

27
. Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergholz,
Dnevnik kammer-iunkera Berkhgol’tsa, vedennyi im v Rossii v tsarstvovanie Petra Velikago, s 1721–1725 g
., trans. I. Ammon, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Tipograpfiya Katkova i Ko., 1858), 2:349. See also Massie,
Peter the Great
, 119.

28
. von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 240; Vladislav B. Aksenov,
Veselie Rusi, XX vek: gradus noveishei rossiiskoi istorii ot “p’yanogo byudzheta” do “sukhogo zakona
” (Moscow: Probel-2000, 2007), 32–33.

29
. Massie,
Peter the Great
, 119–20. Such a scene is reminiscent of Pieter Bruegel’s (in)famous 1559 oil painting depicting
The Fight between Carnival and Lent
.

30
. Kelly,
History of Russia
, 338–39. On Zotov’s Bible see James Cracraft,
The Church Reform of Peter the Great
(Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1971), 11.

31
. Just Juel, “Iz zapisok datskogo poslannika Iusta Iulia,”
Russkii arkhiv
30, no. 3 (1892): 41; Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
, 258. Even Voltaire’s history of Peter makes mention of Volkov; see M. de Voltaire,
The History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great
, 2 vols. (Berwick, U.K.: R. Taylor, 1760), vol. 1, chap. 9, “Travels of Peter the Great.”

32
. Lindsey Hughes, “Playing Games: The Alternative History of Peter the Great,”
SSEES Occasional Papers
41 (1998): 13, and
Peter the Great, 90
.

33
. Wilson,
Peter the Great
, 33; Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 73.

34
. Borodin,
Kabak I Ego Proshloe
, 44; Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 157; H. Sutherland Edwards, “Food and Drink,” in
Russia as Seen and Described by Famous Writers
, ed. Esther Singleton (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1906), 260–61.

35
. von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 240–41; Segal,
Russian Drinking
, 72. Segal’s accounts are based on Aleksei Tolstoi,
Pyotr Pervyi
(Moscow: Pravda, 1971), 335. See also Massie,
Peter the Great
, 117. Even Swedish playwright August Strindberg referenced Peter’s house crashing, in
Historical Miniatures (1905
) (Middlesex, U.K.: Echo Library, 2006), 152.

36
. Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 147.

37
. On faulting Peter’s upbringing see von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 238. On the need for entertainment see Rambaud,
Russia
, 27. For the cultural backlash argument see Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
; Wilson,
Peter the Great
, 34. On the use of parody to discredit tradition see Zitser,
Transfigured Kingdom
, 3–9.

38
. von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 240–41.

39
. Kelly,
History of Russia
, 289. See also Orlando Williams Wight,
Life of Peter the Great
, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1882), 1:223–25.

40
. Peter himself sailed to meet the first merchant vessel to approach his new capital. Peter then piloted the Dutch vessel, with its cargo of salt and wine, to port, paying the skipper five hundred ducats out of pocket and decreeing the ship forever free from tolls. Nathan Haskell Dole,
Young Folks’ History of Russia
(New York: Saalfield Publishing Co., 1903), 391.

41
. Massie,
Peter the Great
, 119. Indeed, much official business was run through “unofficial” channels. All petitions and memorials addressed to the tsar wound up with Romodanovsky. If one were to complain about any particular outcome to the tsar, he would pass the blame: “It is not my fault; all depends on the czar of Moscow,” Romodanovsky. Kelly,
History of Russia
, 271–72.

42
. Juel, “Iz zapisok datskogo poslannika Iusta Iulia,” 37.

43
. Kelly,
History of Russia
, 298. Also see Walter J. Gleason,
Empress Anna: Favorites, Policies, Campaigns
(Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International, 1984), 194; Hughes,
Peter the Great
, 91, and “Playing Games,” 13. The reverse of this dynamic also had tragic consequences, as Russian ambassadors often took their inebriety with them. Adam Olearius recounted how, in 1608, the Russian ambassador to Swedish King Charles IX drank so much that he was found dead in bed. Samuel H. Baron, ed.,
The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia
(Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967), 144. See also Vladimir P. Nuzhnyi,
Vino v zhinzni i zhizn‘ v vine
(Moscow: Sinteg, 2001), 24.

44
. “Peter the Great as Peter the Little,” in
Review of Reviews
, vol. 5, January–June, ed. W. T. Stead (London, Mowbray House: 1892), 172; Juel, “Iz zapisok datskogo poslannika Iusta Iulia,” 30, 32, 42–44. See also Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
, 266.

45
. Hughes,
Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
, 266. The quote is from Juel, “Iz zapisok datskogo poslannika Iusta Iulia,” 43–44.

46
. Cracraft,
Church Reform of Peter the Great
, 13. See also Banks,
Life of Peter the Great
, 2:222–23. Banks cites a handwritten manuscript of Dr. Birch housed in the Sloane papers in the British Museum.

47
. Bergholz,
Dnevnik kammer-iunkera Berkhgol’tsa
, 1:257. See also ibid., 1:237; Banks,
Life of Peter the Great
, 216.

48
. Barrow,
Life of Peter the Great
, 116; Kelly,
History of Russia
, 254–55.

49
. Ségur,
History of Russia and of Peter the Great
, 381; von Strahlenberg,
Russia, Siberia and Great Tatary
, 241–42.