Russian Society

tsar-nicholas-ii-of-russia-with-his-fami

C L A S S

The Ruling Class

This tier consisted of the Tsar and the royal family. They made up less than 1% (0.5%) of the population, but owned a significant amount of land.
The wider upper class was made up of landowning nobles, wealthy merchants and high ranking members of the Orthodox Church, civil service and military.
- They made up approximately 12% of the population.

Tsar Nicholas II with the Romanov Family 1913

The Nobility

The upper class owned all the land and was dependent on the Tsar. They dominated the positions of influence in army command and civil service.
Many landowners had benefited from the end of serfdom in 1861. When the government had to pay for land to give to some of the freed peasants, some landowners used the payments to buy up more land.
Landowners were conservative and protective of their wealth. High ranking officials drawn from this class also tended to be conservative and opposed to reform. Many of the landowners served as Land Captains, known as “little Tsars” by the peasants. They kept order in the countryside. They punished peasants by public floggings.

Dmitry Kardovsky – ‘Ball in the Assembly

Dmitry Kardovsky, "Ball in St. Petersburg Assembly Hall of the Noble 23 February 1913"

The Middle Class

This tier consisted of a small middle class of civil servants, professionals such as doctors or lawyers, merchants and businessmen made up around 1.5% of the population.
The middle class grew through industrialization in the 1890s, both in number and in wealth.
The middle classes were often educated with a wider view of the world and more openness to new ideas and reform than many other Russians.

The Working Class

This tier was made up of around 4% of the population and consisted of workers in factories in the developing cities and towns, artisans and craftspeople, soldiers, and sailors.
Suffered from poor wages, insecure employment, poor working conditions.

Social Structure Propaganda: "The Russian Wedding Cake"

Ivan Kulikov, "A Family at Table", 1938

The Peasantry

Until 1861 most of the peasants were serfs. This meant that they were effectively the property of the landowner. In 1861 Alexander II abolished serfdom. However, many of the peasants became worse off. They had to make high taxes to the government to pay for the redistribution of land. Many were charged high rents from landowners.

Russian Working Class

Russian Orthodoxy

As in most societies, religion’s authority threads itself in Russia’s political, social, and cultural life. Though Russia throughout history has posited itself as a multi-faith nation, strict religious belonging has defined national belonging for some time. Russian Orthodoxy became the dominant ideology in 987 AD, a strategic choice toward international upward mobility as most civilizations in the area had taken Christianity under their wing. The religion stresses a way of life particularly expressed through worship. There’s the belief that they practice their faith in the “orthos” or “right” way. Prior to the adoption of the national religion, Russia had Pagan and Slavic roots that never truly dissipated from their culture entirely. Common rituals in Russian Orthodoxy such as prayers sung at dawn and dusk, fasting, and marriage through crowning are all facets that still draw from their ancestral worship and rites. Russian Orthodoxy is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and still currently holds the faith of the majority of the population.

R E L I G I O N

Andrei Rublev, "Trinity"

Khlysty, Skopts, and Other Offshoots

Russia’s historical tolerance for a vast majority of religions set them apart from many other nations. However, it was expected Russians themselves followed the Orthodox church. Throughout time, various religious sects of the Orthodoxy arose as the population began to see the church as degraded and tyrannical. Some of these offshoots include the Khlysty or “the flagellates” who believed that in order to get closer to God one must repent, and in order to repent, one must sin. The Khlysty were infamous for their orgiastic rituals, such as the “radeniya” or circular dance rituals that often ended in group sex. The Skopts or “the castrated ones” arose in direct response and retaliation to the Khlysty. They believed paradise was a place of celibacy and swore off sex entirely by castrating male bodies and severing the breasts of female bodies.

Another notable heretical sect at the time was the Old Believers, who in the 17th century wanted to keep the traditional pagan rituals as a part of Russian Orthodoxy’s practice despite the church’s desire to revise them. This split in worship later tied to those who followed the “Double Faith” in the 18th century, the Occult in the 20th century, and eventually allowed the support of Atheism post-revolution.

Ecstatic_ritual_of_Khlysts_(radeniye).jp

Khlysty Radeniya

D R I N K I N G

C U L T U R E

Russian men drinking in an inn (kabak)
British Library 150.k.17

Drinking culture played an integral part in the lives of Russian people during Chekhov’s lifetime, a precedent set centuries before him that continues on to today. In fact, it is believed that Prince Vladimir chose Orthodox Christianity as the national religion in 988 AD largely in part because it was one of the few religions that permitted alcohol consumption. While we most commonly associate Russia with vodka in terms of alcohol, ancient Russians actually drank a low-alcoholic wine made of honey (Medovukha) and a grape wine imported from Byzantium. However, due to costly and timely methods of long-distance production, working class Russians eventually found a way to make affordable homemade moonshine out of bread in the 15th century. As Russia became Europeanized, Ivan the Terrible banned the production of moonshine and set up kabaks in the 1540s. Kabaks were local establishments where spirits were produced and sold, and also offered gambling, prostitution, and money and grain loans. By 1640s the government-owned kabaks had a full monopoly on alcohol production in Russia and had established themselves as an essential element of daily life for peasant men, who would frequent them after work to drown their sorrows.

Alcoholism

By the 1700s, Russian rulers began to profit off of their subjects’ alcoholism as 40-75% of the male population in the empire were in debt to kabaks. Excessive alcohol consumption was encouraged as it created revenue. Writes Heidi Brown, “[Peter the Great] decreed that the wives of peasants should be whipped if they dared attempt to drag their imbibing husbands out of taverns before the men were ready to leave.” Peter the Great was also able to form an expansive military of unpaid laborers by allowing those in debt due to drinking to avoid debtors prison by serving 25 years in the army. By the mid-1800’s, Vodka was the source of nearly 50% of the government’s internal revenue.

There were efforts to staunch the countrywide dependence on alcohol, particularly following the Bolshevik Revolution when Lenin banned vodka in 1917 and later by Gorbachev in 1985. Lenin’s campaign was quickly reversed by Stalin, who used vodka sales to fund the Soviet industrial revolution and re-established vodka as an essential part of the economy. By the 1970’s, one third of the government’s revenue consisted of alcohol purchases (again), and consumption more than doubled from 1955 to 1979. Despite Gorbachev’s efforts (which were largely considered to be the most effective campaign against alcohol in Russian history, vodka continues to play a key role in post-Soviet Russia. Today, 1 in 5 men in the Russian Federation die from alcohol-related causes (compared to the global rate of 6.2%), and alcohol remains extremely cheap and largely untaxed due to clandestine, unregulated production. Narcology, a subsection of Russian psychiatry, serves as the most popular treatment for addiction; conventional treatments (such as AA) are not recognized by the Kremlin and remain scarce and underfunded.

Alcoholism Demographics 2010

Gorbachev's Anti-Alcohol Campaign, Propaganda mid-80s

Russian Drinking Toast

“And you don’t drink a Vodka right away. No, Sir. First, you take a deep breath, wipe your hands and glance up at the ceiling to demonstrate your indifference. Only then you raise your vodka slowly to your lips and suddenly: Sparks! They fly from you stomach to the furthest reaches of your body!”

-Chekhov

Drinking Customs

Toasting is incredibly important in Russian culture
- Should always start with “na zdorovie” or “za zdorovie” (“for the good health”)
- Wish well-being for the host or cheer to friendship (“za druzhbu?”)
- Toaster pours their own vodka last
The Zakuska
- Food is always paired with drinking
- Often a savory snack to eat or smell (Pickles, Olivier salad, Toasts, Shashlik)
- Links back to the traditional Russian ritual of greeting important guests with “bread and salt”
Zastolye
- One must always have a reason/occasion to drink
- Zastolye (drinking alcohol at table w/ friends and relatives) is a common occasion
- Most notorious Zastolye is New Year’s Eve, which comes with a unique set of traditions
  - Drink sparkling wine (Soviet Champagne)
  - Eat mandarin oranges, Olivier salad, optional main dishes, and Vodka
  - Decorate Christmas Tree
  - Watch 1976 movie “The Irony of Fate”, made popular in Soviet households during the holidays