Vodka Politics_Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State
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2. Vice Magazine journalist Ivar Berglin goes on a similar expedition into the origins of vodka in his Vice Guide to Travel documentary “Wodka Wars,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR_37f6hHTE (accessed July 21, 2013).
3. The biographical material on Vilyam Pokhlebkin was culled from the Russia 1 television documentary “Smert’ kulinara: Vil’yam Pokhlebkin,” http://www.rutv.ru/video.html?vid=39680&cid=5079&d=0.
4. “Vodka,” in Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Big Soviet Encyclopedia) (English translation), ed. A. M. Prokhorov (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 545.
5. Daniel J. Malleck, “Whiskies,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack S. Blocker Jr., David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell (Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 2:650; Birgit Speckle, Streit ums Bier in Bayern: Wertvorstellungen um Reinheit, Gemeinschaft und Tradition (Münster: Waxman Verlag, 2001), 80–81.
6. Artur Tabolov, Oligarkh: Prestupleniya i raskayanie (Moscow: EKSMO, 2008); cited in Boris V. Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman: Pravda i lozh‘ o russkoi vodke (Grand Deception: Truth and Lies about Russian Vodka) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo AST, 2011), 58–63.
7. Vilyam Vasilevich Pokhlebkin, Istoriya vodki (Moscow: Tsentpoligraf, 2000), 11–15. On Stolichnaya and Pepsi see Charles Levinson, Vodka Cola (London: Gordon & Cremonesi, 1978), 94; Vladislav Kovalenko, “Vodka—vse ravno chto vechnyi dvigatel’,” Kompaniya 197, no. 1 (2002), http://ko.ru/articles/3858 (accessed Feb. 10, 2013); Igor Shumeiko, 10 mifov o russkoi vodke (10 myths about Russian vodka) (Moscow: Yauza, 2009), 30–35.
8. Shumeiko, 10 mifov o russkoi vodke, 35 (emphasis in original).
9. “Smert’ kulinara: Vil’yam Pokhlebkin,” http://www.rutv.ru/video.html?vid=39680&cid=5079&d=0.
10. Yuliya Azman and Oleg Fochkin, “Za chto ubili pisatelya Pokhlebkina?” Moskovskii Komsomolets, April 18, 2000; Aleksandr Evtushenko, “… A telo prolezhalo v kvartire tri nedeli,” Komsomol’skaya pravda, April 21, 2000; “Ubit znamenityi geral’dist i kulinar,” Moskovskii Komsomolets, April 15, 2000; James Meek, “The Story of Borshch,” The Guardian, March 15, 2008.
11. Azman and Fochkin, “Za chto ubili pisatelya Pokhlebkina?”; “Smert’ kulinara: Vil’yam Pokhlebkin,” http://www.rutv.ru/video.html?vid=39680&cid=5079&d=0; Evtushenko, “… A telo prolezhalo v kvartire tri nedeli.”
12. Viktor Erofeev, Russkii apokalipsis: opyt khudozhestvennoi eskhatologii (Moscow: Zebra E, 2008), 15; Victor Erofeyev, “The Russian God,” New Yorker, Dec. 16, 2002.
13. “Smert’ kulinara: Vil’yam Pokhlebkin,” http://www.rutv.ru/video.html?vid=39680&cid=5079&d=0. Some sources that retell the Pokhlebkin case include Shumeiko, 10 mifov o russkoi vodke, 34–35; Anatolii Sheipak, Istoriya nauki i tekhniki: Materialy i tekhnologii, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo MGIU, 2009), 1:141; Mikhail Timofeev, Rossiya: Nezavershennyi proekt (Ivanovo: Ivanovskii Gos. Universitet, 2000), 34.
14. Aleksandra Verizhnikova, “Narodnyi kulinar Pokhlebkin,” Vechernyaya Moskva, April 22, 2003.
15. See, for instance, Nicholas Ermochkine and Peter Iglikowski, 40 Degrees East: An Anatomy of Vodka (Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova, 2003), 42–43; Yurii Ivanov, Kniga o vodke (Smolensk: Rusich, 1997), 44; V. Z. Grigor’eva, Vodka izvestnaya i neizvestnaya: XIV–XX veka (Moscow: Enneagon, 2007), 6–8; Sergei Romanov, Istoriya russkoi vodki (Moscow: Veche, 1998), 29; Vitalii Krichevskii, Russian vodka: Pis’ma moemu shveitsarskomu drugu (St. Petersburg: Dean, 2002), 7–13; Vladimir Nikolaev, Vodka v sud’be Rossii (Moscow: Parad, 2004), 148–49; V. B. Aksenov, Veselie Rusi, XX vek: Gradus noveishei rossiiskoi istorii ot ‘p’yanogo byudzheta’ do ‘sukhogo zakona’ (Moscow: Probel-2000, 2007); Gennadii M. Karagodin, Kniga o vodke i vinodelii (Chelyabinsk: Ural, 2000), 44; Vadim V. Zolotaryov, Pod znakom orla i lebedya (Moscow: Krugozor-Nauka, 2003), 14–16.
16. David Christian, “Review: A History of Vodka by William Pokhlebkin,” Slavic Review 53, no. 1 (1994): 245.
17. Pokhlebkin, Istoriya vodki, 55, 118–19; Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 152. In this context Pokhlebkin is speaking of a Genoese diplomatic delegation to Moscow in the year 1429 (mistranslated as 1426 in the English version, p. 57) to the court of “Vasily III Temnyi.” In the 1420s, Muscovy was ruled by Vasily II Temnyi, so the difference between “II” and “III” appears to be a typo in the original Russian. However, the English translation drops the “the Blind” to suggest that “the Genoese displayed further samples of aqua vitae to the court of Vasily III” (p. 57). Additional errors include (p. 55) dating a Genoese visit to Moscow to 1386, citing Gavriil Uspenskii, Opyt povestvovaniya o drevnostyakh ruskikh, 2 vols. (Kharkov: Tipografiya Imperatorskago Khar’kovskago Universiteta, 1818), 78. Unfortunately, Uspensky provides no such date, only mentioning that the Genoese fled an invasion in 1389. Perhaps accordingly, in his chronology, Pokhlebkin (p. 298) dates the Genoese arrival as “1386–1398.” Rodionov also enumerates Pokhlebkin’s errors in terms of chemical composition and history of the distillation process. See Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 23–33.
18. Christian, “Review: A History of Vodka by William Pokhlebkin,” 256. Similar accusations were made by Rodionov, though it appears that Rodionov never read Christian’s review. Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 80.
19. The documentary is available at http://www.rutv.ru/video.html?tvpreg_id=101763&cid=5079&d=0&mid=14.
20. See the PCA case list at http://www.pca-cpa.org/upload/files/Consolidated%20Annexes. pdf; the ICJ case list at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=2 (accessed Jan. 11, 2011).
21. Peter Maggs. Personal correspondence with author. Nov. 13, 2010.
22. Howard A. Tyner, “Poles Say They Made Vodka First,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 1, 1978, 4; “Vodka Credit Goes to Poles,” Hartford Courant, Aug. 25 1970, 16. On the legal disputes over champagne, cognac, etc., see Alfred Phillip Knoll, “Champagne,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1970).
23. We enlisted the help of researchers both at the Library of Congress and the Law Library of Congress, yet all of their findings referred back to Pokhlebkin’s unsubstantiated claims. Pravda and Izvestiya archives provided by EastView.
24. Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 6, 64–66. Many thanks to Adrianne Jacobs for bringing Rodionov’s recent work to my attention, even late in the final stages of review and revision.
25. Kovalenko, “Vodka.”
26. The present-day Hotel Moskva on Manezh Square across from the Kremlin in Moscow is a replica of the original hotel built in the 1930s, which stood on the same site. The new Moskva even reproduces the noteworthy merging of two separate architectural styles. Viewing the hotel from Manezh Square, the ornate edifice and rounded-top windows of the left protrusion are completely different from the square, simpler edifice on the right side. The most popular explanation faults architect Alexei Shchusev for submitting to Stalin two alternative blueprints side by side with a line down the middle to distinguish the different styles. Apparently not realizing that he was being asked to choose, Stalin simply signed off on the plans. Fearing the consequences of second-guessing Stalin, the architects and builders simply built the structure as he authorized. The presence of the Moskva on the Stoli label is reportedly attributable to Lavrenti Beria himself. Aleksandr Nikishin, Vodka i Gorbachev (Moscow: Vsya Rossiya, 2007), 51.
27. Peter Maggs. Personal correspondence with author. Nov. 13, 2010. See also Michael Blakeney, “Proposals for the International Regulation of Geographical Indications,” Journal of World Intellectual Property 4, no. 5 (2001). This is not to be confused with more recent disputes (the so-called vodka war of 2006) within the European Union over what ingredients of distillation beyond the traditional grains and potatoes can legally be classified as vodka. See Dan Bilefsky, “A Spirited War: The Search for the Real Vodka,” New York Times, Nov. 23, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/world/europe/23iht-vodka.3648566. html (accessed Oct. 18, 2010.) The so-called Schnellhardt compromise (after the German rapporteur) now states that products made from something other than traditional grains or potatoe
s must be clearly labeled as “vodka produced from…” European Parliament, “Vodka War May Soon Be at an End” (June 26, 2007). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/get-Doc.do?language=EN&type=IM-PRESS&reference=20070131STO02626 (accessed Oct. 24, 2010).
28. Peter Maggs. Personal correspondence with author. Nov. 13, 2010.
29. See The Truth about Vodka in Black & White, http://www.vodkasobieski.com/2010/the_truth.php (accessed Oct. 26, 2010). On Polish vodka history see Hillel Levine, “Gentry, Jews, and Serfs: The Rise of Polish Vodka,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 4, no. 2 (1980): 223. The Polish Spirits Industry association (Polski Przemysł Spirytusowy) claims that the word vodka first appeared in court documents dated 1405 from the Palatinate of Sandomierz registry; see http://www.pps.waw.pl/9,43,55_history_of_polish_vodka.html (accessed Oct. 26, 2010); see also Exposition Universaelle des Vins et Spiritueux, “About Vodka,” http://www.euvs.org/en/collection/spirits/vodka (accessed Oct. 26, 2010); “Vodka Credit Goes to Poles”; Tyner, “Poles Say They Made Vodka First.”
30. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974), 157. On pot stills see David Christian, Living Water: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 26. On the Mongolian still see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, pt. 4: Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 48–62. On skepticism see George Snow, “Vodka,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, ed. Jack S. Blocker Jr., David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell (Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2003), 2:636.
31. See Yu. I. Bobryshev et al., Istoriya vinokureniya, prodazhi pitei, aktsiznoi politiki Rusi i Rossii v arkheologicheskikh nakhodkakh i dokumentakh XII–XIX vv. (Moscow: Krugozor-nauka, 2004), 37–41; Zolotaryov, Pod znakom orla i lebedya, 34–35.
32. Jos Schaeken, Leiden University, the Netherlands, personal correspondence with the author, Oct. 24, 2010. On the present interpretation of vodja as alluding to marriage see A. A. Zaliznyak, Drevnenovgorodskii dialekt, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoi kul’tury, 2004). On birchbark linguistic study see Jos Schaeken, “Line-Final Word Division in Rusian Birchbark Documents,” Russian Linguistics 19, no. 1 (1995); Willem Vermeer, “Towards a Thousand Birchbark Letters,” Russian Linguistics 19, no. 1 (1995). Unfortunately, Rodionov’s criticism of the Bobryshev et al. myth is far gentler than his handling of Pokhlebkin. See Boris V. Rodionov, Istoriya russkoi vodki ot polugara do nashikh dnei (Moscow: Eksmo, 2011), 278–80, and Bol’shoi obman, 77–80.
33. Brian Hayden, Neil Canuel, and Jennifer Shanse, “What Was Brewing in the Natufian? An Archaeological Assessment of Brewing Technology in the Epipaleolithic,” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20, no. 1 (2013): 102–4; Maggie Fox, “At 6,000 Years Old, Wine Press Is Oldest yet Found,” Reuters, Jan. 11 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A0XS20110111 (accessed Jan. 11, 2011); Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003). As I note elsewhere, paeans for temperance are almost as old as the discovery of alcohol itself. Mark Lawrence Schrad, “The First Social Policy: Alcohol Control and Modernity in Policy Studies,” Journal of Policy History 19, no. 4 (2007): 438.
34. The eighty-proof standard is often attributed to nineteenth-century Russian chemist, inventor, and founder of the periodic table of elements Dmitry Mendeleyev. Erofeyev, “The Russian God.” Rodionov, however, suggests that even this is a false reading of history that has been elevated to the status of legend. Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 12–13, 348–70.
35. Bruce T. Moran, Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 12.
36. R. J. Forbes, A Short History of the Art of Distillation: From the Beginnings up to the Death of Cellier, 2nd ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), 57.
37. Ibid., 60–61; Uspenskii, Opyt povestvovaniya o drevnostyakh ruskikh, 1:77; Hugh Johnson, Vintage: The Story of Wine (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 2:126.
38. Edward Gildemeister and Fr. Hoffman, The Volatile Oils, trans. Edward Kremers, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1913), 1:30. Also see Rodionov, Istoriya russkoi vodki, 44.
39. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1812), 1:727–28; Forbes, Short History of the Art of Distillation, 101.
40. Donald MacGillivray Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
41. Charles King, The Black Sea: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 86; H. Sutherland Edwards, “Food and Drink,” in Russia as Seen and Described by Famous Writers, ed. Esther Singleton (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1906), 261–62.
42. Edwards, “Food and Drink,” 261; Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 1435–1439 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 134; Ivan Pryzhov, Istoriya kabakov v Rossii (Moscow: Molodiya sily, 1914), 44.
43. James Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 86. Likewise, see N. A. Bogoyavlenskii, Drevnerusskoe vrachevanie v XI–XVII vv. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo meditsinskoi literatury medgiz, 1960), 81.
44. Pokhlebkin, Istoriya vodki, 55, 118–19. This highlights further factual errors in Pokhlebkin’s account: Pokhlebkin (p. 55) dates the Genoese visit to Moscow to 1386, citing Uspensky’s Opyt povestvovaniya, p. 78. Unfortunately, Uspensky provides no such date, only mentioning that the Genoese fled an invasion in 1389. Perhaps accordingly, in his chronology of alcohol, Pokhlebkin (p. 298) dates the Genoese arrival as “1386–1398.” Furthermore, Pokhlebkin (p. 119) claims there was another Genoese diplomatic delegation to Lithuania in 1429. The English translation of Pokhlebkin’s A History of Vodka (p. 57) mistakenly cites the date as 1426. See also note 17 above.
45. King, Black Sea, 100; Pokhlebkin, Istoriya vodki, 120. Here too there are discrepancies between Pokhlebkin’s Russian text and the English translation: the former has the conquest of Kaffa in 1395, and its incorporation into the Crimean Khanate of Girei in 1465, whereas the latter merges the conquest and incorporation into a single event, deleting any mention of 1465. R. E. F. Smith and David Christian are skeptical that a trade in alcoholic beverages would have been permitted via this route following the the conversion of the Tatars to Islam in 1389—the knowledge of distillation, however, is another matter. R. E. F. Smith and David Christian, Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 88.
46. Billington, Icon and the Axe, 86.
47. Erofeyev, “The Russian God”; Erofeev, Russkii apokalipsis, 15. Here again we find more Pokhlebkin misinformation regarding the legend: suggesting Isidore was held under the command of Vasily III (pp. 163–64, Russian; pp. 83–84, English), apparently meaning Vasily II, since Vasily III—again—did not rule until 1503 (see note 17 above). In the end, even Pokhlebkin dismisses the legend. Pokhlebkin, Istoriya vodki, 163–64. Others who present the legend as fact include Sergei I. Shubin, Severnyi vektor politiki Rossii: Problemy i perspektivy (Arkhangel’sk: Pomorskii universitet, 2006), 190; Krichevskii, Russian vodka, 76; Anthony Dias Blue, The Complete Book of Spirits: A Guide to Their History, Production, and Enjoyment (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 13; Bob Emmons, The Book of Gins and Vodkas: A Complete Guide (Peru, Ill.: Open Court Publishing, 1999), 101–2; Karagodin, Kniga o vodke i vinodelii, 44.
48. Anna L. Khoroshkevich, Torgovlya Velikogo Novgoroda s Pribaltikoi i zapadnoi Evropoi v XIV–XV vekakh (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo akademii nauk SSSR, 1963), 323–32; Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, 88–89.
49. Rodionov, Istoriya russkoi vodki, 266.
50. Grigor’eva, Vodka izvestnaya i neizvestnaya: XIV–XX veka, 19. Another source of ongoing confusion in the history of vodka concerns the use of the word
vino, which translates as wine but was often used in reference to grain-based distilled alcohol—vodka—rather than wine. Christian, Living Water, 26. Rodionov’s central thesis is that early distilled “burnt wine” and polugar were substantively distinct from “modern” rectified vodka, which emerges only with Sergei Witte’s vodka monopoly in 1895. Rodionov, Bol’shoi obman, 394–410; Rodionov, Istoriya russkoi vodki, 13–33.