Vodka Politics_Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State

by Mark Lawrence Schrad

  In the transition from drunken fraternity to counter court, many of the nicknames Peter gave his entourage were elevated to “official” titles based on their service at Preobrazhenskoe. In the play maneuvers of Peter’s youth, a battle was waged between an “enemy” army led by boyar Ivan Buturlin against the defenders of the play fortress town of Pressberg, led by Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky—a horrible and cruel drunk who became one of Peter’s most trusted followers. As a result, Peter dubbed Buturlin the “Polish king.” Romodanovsky became known as the “king of Pressburg” and, later, “prince-caesar.” These titles endured even into official correspondence, as Peter’s letters to Romodanovsky were even addressed to “Your Majesty” or “My Lord King”—often signed “Your bondsman and eternal slave, Peter.”27

  Peter also mocked the powerful Russian Orthodox Church by creating the “All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters,” anointing his aging tutor Zotov as the “prince-pope,” patriarch of Bacchus, to preside over the drunken heresy while seated atop a cask of vodka.28 As in his counter court, Peter drew up rituals and ceremonies for the Drunken Synod, with the first commandment that “Bacchus be worshipped with strong and honorable drinking,” meaning in effect that “all goblets were to be emptied promptly and that members were to get drunk every day and never go to bed sober.”29

  The group had their own “holy” book—a Bible hollowed out to carry several flasks of vodka. Lampooning the conclaves of Rome, Peter’s “cardinals” were isolated and forced to drink until they answered a number of Pope Zotov’s farcical questions about their respective families. Peter listened eagerly to the ribaldry, always noting “any hints of which it might be possible for him to make a vindictive use.”30 After three days and nights of heavy drinking, the doors of the conclave were thrown open. His holiness Zotov and the other hungover cardinals who stammered out were carried home on sledges while some never emerged at all. More than a few died from alcohol poisoning and instead needed to be borne to the actual church for interment. Their wakes demanded even more drinking.

  The Drunken Synod even mocked the sacrament of marriage by arranging an elaborate wedding for Peter’s “Royal Dwarf,” Yakim Volkov. Peter had a deep affection for little people, and Volkov was at the side of the 6’7” tsar both in drinking contests and military conquests. For Volkov’s wedding, Peter had prince-caesar Romodanovsky invite—or order—every karlik (or “dwarf,” as was and is the commonly used term) across Russia to St. Petersburg to take part in the ceremony. On the big day, roughly seventy little people—all clad in fine European clothes ordered by Peter—made up the wedding train. The towering tsar himself held the wedding crown over the bride as the couple exchanged nuptials. During the reception the dwarfs sat at miniature tables in the center of the banquet hall while the full-sized guests looked on from the sides. They were served by a dwarf marshal, and the toasts were celebrated with salvos from miniature cannons. While such scenes easily offend our modern sensibilities, back then Peter, his courtiers, and foreign dignitaries all delighted in the spectacle of joyous dancing dwarfs stumbling and falling over drunk.31

  The dwarf wedding, like the Drunken Synod, further blurred the lines between Peter’s official world and his play one, since the same characters participated in both. Indeed, just as the Holy Synod was subordinate to the secular state power, so too the Drunken Synod was subordinated to the drunken court. In any case, through the alcoholic haze it was unclear where the mockery ended and the “real” government began.32 For instance, an official letter of March 1706 from Peter in St. Petersburg to his confidant Menshikov was signed by Peter’s compatriots in the Jolly Company: “the dog Lizetka, who affixed her paw, and the royal dwarf Yakim Volkov, who added that he had been given permission to be drunk for three days. The tsar signed himself ‘Archdeacon Peter.’”33

  Yet despite the constant flow of alcohol, Peter somehow always arose refreshed from the revelry to lead his country forward toward a new day—or at least another feast.

  Very few could match Peter’s pace, and even his best friends in the Jolly Company occasionally sought refuge from the flood of alcohol. At one celebration over heavy Hungarian wines, Menshikov was caught drinking a weaker Rhine wine, so as not to get drunk as fast. As a penalty for violating the rules, Peter made his favorite drink two full bottles of the heavier wine from the “Great Eagle,” at which point Menshikov collapsed into a drunken stupor and had to be carried home while his wife and sister wept uncontrollably.34

  During Russian holidays—from the spring carnival of Shrovetide to the winter feasts of Christmas and New Year’s—the Jolly Company of eighty to two hundred revelers took this raucous party on the road: forcing themselves on the unsuspecting elites of Moscow and St. Petersburg. When caroling through the snowy streets in a caravan of sleighs each seating twelve to twenty, the group crowed off-key yuletide songs. If, in their drunkenness, any company member, besotted host, or innocent bystander forgot the tsar’s rules, they were met with ceremonial blows from the knout or treated to the Great Eagle.35 Peter even penned official rules for his hosts:

  Our intemperance means that we are sometimes so incapacitated that we cannot move from the spot and it may happen that we are unable to visit all the houses that we have promised to visit on a given day, and the hosts may be out of pocket as a result of the preparations they have made. Therefore we declare and firmly pronounce, on threat of punishment with the Great Eagle Cup, that nobody should prepare any food. And if we should deign to have a meal from someone, we shall communicate our orders in advance, and for confirmation we have signed this edict with our own hand and have ordered it sealed with the great seal of Gabriel.36

  What was the reason for this bizarre behavior on the part of Russia’s “great” leader? No one quite knows for sure. Contemporaries faulted his upbringing. Nineteenth-century scholars thought Peter needed to amuse his courtiers in his new capital of St. Petersburg. Some historians today view it as a testosterone-fueled cultural backlash against the overthrow of the (female) regency of Sophia, while others argue that institutionalizing such debauches was necessary to discredit medieval cultural practices and bring Russia into “modern” Europe.37 When understood within the context of vodka politics and autocratic state building, with parallels in both Russia’s modern and ancient history, Peter’s drunken revelry seems less unusual and more of an enduring element of autocratic domination.

  Indeed, bearing witness to the activities of Peter’s Jolly Company both in the privacy of their counter court and in their public excursions, the Swedish dignitary John von Strahlenberg noted:

  Thus these Processions cause many sober People to get a Habit of Drunkenness, and some, who were treated in that Manner, died, the same Night, almost before they could reach their own Habitations. He likewise put the Inhabitants of Muscow under such Apprehensions, that no body durst to speak publickly any Thing against the Czar, or his Favourites; And when any Person was informed against, he was treated with the utmost Cruelty, and the informer rewarded.38

  Peter’s seemingly unusual antics were fully consistent with the Russian tradition of utilizing alcohol to keep both society and his inner circle off balance—using their drunkenness to extract useful information. Even in the midst of their revelry Peter drew out secrets from his drunken companions, making note mentally or in his pocketbook. Histories and firsthand accounts all concur that “he removed many a man out of the way who had revealed his mind in this manner.”39

  Alcohol was likewise an instrument in Peter’s foreign policy portfolio. Grappling with Nordic powerhouse Sweden for a foothold in the Baltic in the Great Northern War, in 1703 Peter broke ground on his new capital—St. Petersburg—in the delta where the Neva River empties into the Baltic Sea.40 The defining military victory, however, would not come until six years later at the Battle of Poltava (in present-day Ukraine), where Peter’s modernized army put a decisive end to Sweden’s territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe. Following their crushing defeat, the
vanquished Swedes tendered their surrender to someone they thought to be the Russian tsar. Unbeknownst to them, the official delegation spoke not to Peter, but to his drunken “prince-caesar” Romodanovsky while a suspiciously tall “officer” stood silently to the side.41

  Vodka could be even more instrumental than the military to Peter’s territorial ambitions. With the Russians encroaching into his territory, Friedrich Wilhelm Kettler, the grand duke of Courland (present-day Latvia), agreed to wed Peter’s niece Anna Ivanovna. Since her father—the co-tsar Ivan V—had died long ago, Peter assumed the role of father of the bride. In the frigid January of 1711 he threw a massive wedding feast rivaled only by the spectacle of the wedding of the Royal Dwarf Volkov earlier that winter—where Anna and Frederick were the uncomfortable guests of honor. The celebration following the royal wedding was even more surreal: the betrothed couple were ceremoniously served a massive pie, out of which popped two female dwarfs dressed in the height of French fashion who then read poetry and sang a minuet.42 The uncomfortable duke—unaccustomed to such alcoholic absurdity—drank so much that he didn’t simply get a hangover; he actually died. With this news, Peter claimed to oversee the administration of Courland in the name of his niece, thus effectively absorbing the duchy into Russia. Indeed, the “custom of immoderate drinking, which proved fatal to the duke of Courland, was taken advantage of by Peter, as well as by diplomatists in general, to promote their political objects. He compelled his guests, according to Russian usage, to drink brandy [vodka], that he might the more easily extract the secrets of his nobles and the foreign ambassadors, or destroy them.”43

  Foreign diplomats were not immune from Peter’s vodka politics: he often plied them with alcohol until they too bore state secrets, passed out drunk, or just plain died. The Danish ambassador Just Juel tells of the tsar’s servants forcing dignitaries to submit to the Great Eagle onboard his ship. Unable to dismiss Peter’s butler, the inebriated Juel scaled the foremast and hid among the sails. Learning of this, Peter himself climbed the mast of the tall ship with bottles of wine in his pockets and the Great Eagle in his teeth to force him to drink five rounds of penance together in his perch. On a separate occasion, Juel faked an illness to escape a “life-threatening” three-day victory celebration. Roused from his bed by the great sovereign himself, the weary Dane was escorted to the party in his nightshirt and slippers. Later again, running afoul of the tsar’s perplexing rules, Juel tried a different approach—begging for mercy—to no avail. Pleading on his knees with tears in his eyes, “the Tzar laughingly fell immediately upon his knees, too, saying that he could kneel as long as I, so that we remained in that posture, since neither of us would rise first, until we had emptied six or seven large glasses of wine, and I got up again half drunk.”44 “For the foreign envoy,” recounted Juel, “these drinking sessions are a dreadful ordeal: he either participates in them and ruins his health or misses them and earns the tsar’s disfavor.”45

  Whether Danish or French, all quickly learned this lesson. In a communique to Paris in March 1721, the French ambassador described Peter’s “grande assemblée,” where the drinking was led by Zotov, the mock pope, “whose only distinction was to imbibe much wine and vodka and to smoke tobacco.” Uncomfortable, the new ambassador rose to leave, only to find the exit blocked by armed guards who ensured that no one left sober. “Never in my life have I undergone such a terrible experience,” huffed the ambassador.46

  Other delegates, such as the high chamberlain from Holstein, Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergholz, were so taken aback by the drunkenness that virtually every page of his memoirs describes the tsar’s parties, where Peter forced the duke, foreign dignitaries, and even the ladies of the court to indulge in alcoholic excess. Realizing that escape was not an option, like so many others Bergholz devised familiar strategies to stay sober: drinking slowly and pleading with the servants to water down his portions of wine.47 While it would be easy to dismiss such playful parties, frequently it was under the influence of alcohol that Peter’s cruelty was on display for all to see.

  During a dinner following the streltsy uprising, the Prussian ambassador M. Printz described how a drunken Peter had twenty prisoners brought into the court and, with each of the twenty rounds of alcohol he drank, happily lopped off the head of a condemned prisoner before proposing to the horrified ambassador that he try to match his feat. When even the tsar’s more “civilized” European confidants, such as Franz Lefort, begged not to participate in such brutality, they received a stern reply: there is “no sacrifice more agreeable to the Deity than the blood of a criminal.”48

  Just as Stalin had his Beria, and Ivan had his Skuratov, it was the “prince-caesar” Romodanovsky who stoked Peter’s brutality. Between the tsar and his inebriate grand inquisitor, many prisoners—both guilty and innocent—were tortured, hanged, or beheaded without trial. They saved their cruelest devices for nobles and commoners accused of blasphemous utterances against the tsar while stupefied by drink. Many an innocent drunkard was arrested on nothing more than rumor and hearsay. When asked—as often happened—why any particular wretch should be so tortured, Peter answered: “he must needs be guilty, or he would not have been imprisoned.”49

  Perhaps it should come as little surprise that Peter inflicted his greatest cruelty when he was with Romodanovsky—a man who kept a bear in his palace. that he allegedly trained to perform a very interesting trick: the bear would present to any visitor who wanted to meet with his master a large glass of peppered vodka. Those who downed the awful-tasting liquor without flinching were allowed to pass; those who did not were mauled. Such incivility and drunken atrocities have confused generations of historians: “What kind of civilsation could that be which was inaugurated under such auspices as these, and by so brutal a reformer? Truly did Peter once observe, that ‘he wished to reform others, yet was unable to reform himself’.”50

  The list of Peter’s modernizing reforms was indeed impressive. He taught the mannerisms of the European nobility and did away with such medieval practices as growing long beards. He outlawed arranged marriages and introduced the Julian calendar. He instituted a new tax code to pay for his new capital of St. Petersburg and to maintain the military that helped to secure it. He abolished the old boyar class, instituted noble ranks based on merit and service, and even instituted compulsory education as necessary for a competent and well-functioning government bureaucracy.51 Yet for all of his accomplishments, Peter’s vivid memories of the streltsy uprisings and the almost fatal dynastic rivalries of his childhood kept the issue of succession at the forefront of his thoughts.

  In his youth, Peter’s mother arranged his marriage to Evdokiya Lopukhina, the daughter of an influential boyar. The marriage was an unhappy one. Of their three children, only one—the tsarevich Alexei Petrovich—survived infancy. Banished to a monastery so that Peter could marry his mistress Catherine, Evdokiya raised Alexei to loathe both Peter and his reforms, which made the pair a natural rallying point for the reactionary opposition. Alexei evaded his father, often pretending to be sick or hungover, thereby stoking the tsar’s suspicions.52 Swirling rumors of discord and conspiracy seemed all the more valid when the tsarevich suddenly fled his father’s court for the safety of European exile.

  Amid such familial tension, in 1715 Peter and his second wife, Catherine, celebrated the birth of “junior”—Peter Petrovich. The announcement of another potential heir to the throne was met in classic Petrine fashion: military garrisons were given gifts and vodka as they saluted the news with cannon salvos. Peter, Menshikov, and Apraksin set out casks of free vodka and beer for their subjects, who got “inhumanly drunk.” In Peter’s raucous court, great pies were presented, out of which jumped naked dwarfs who danced for the courtesans’ pleasure: a female dwarf for the men’s table, a male for the ladies’. According to Otto Pleyer, the consul from the Holy Roman Empire, “the joy at this birth among the great and persons of the lesser or low estate is indescribable, they just sleep it off to drink
again and drink to sleep it off. Anyone who is sober pretends to be drunk among the drunk and in all houses the tables are always covered full of food. The tsar calls this prince his real crown prince.”53

  When the prodigal tsarevich Alexei returned from self-imposed exile in 1718, an enraged Peter conducted an official “inquiry” into his son’s scandalous flight. Tortured by his father’s own order, Alexei implicated his closest friends—ensuring that the tsar would impale or break them on the wheel—before publicly renouncing the throne in favor of Peter’s “real” crown prince, Peter Petrovich. Alexei was condemned to death for treason and died in the island fortress of Saints Peter and Paul from repeated lashes by the knout. His son’s death weighed heavily on the great tsar, but at least the imperial succession was secure. That is, until the three-year-old heir to the throne Peter Petrovich, died unexpectedly, threatening another Time of Troubles.54

  With the end of the Romanov bloodline in sight, the increasingly frail Peter instituted a new law on succession that allowed royal power to be appointed rather than inherited. Following bladder infections that left him bedridden in the summer of 1724, the ailing tsar had his beloved wife—a former Latvian peasant—officially crowned Empress Catherine I. As a fitting bookend to his early reign as co-tsar with his brother Ivan, Peter, now at the end of his life, would rule with Catherine. Improving somewhat, Peter even returned for one last conclave of his Drunken Synod—imbibing massive quantities of alcohol that almost certainly aggravated his gangrenous bladder and hastened his demise.55 On the evening of February 6, 1725, the bedridden emperor finally decided who would inherit his empire and throne. Calling for his slate, he scrawled only “I give all…” before the quill pen dropped from his hand. The great tsar slipped into a coma, never to awaken.