Anthropologists have looked at alcohol consumption (as well as the sharing of food) as a primarily social act.^1 I've seen work that discusses the importance of alcohol to French soldiers fighting on the Western Front in WWI, arguing that soldier's rations of alcohol, aimed at promoting camaraderie a fighting spirit etc, was a strategic use of alcohol or food/drink sharing as a strategic and military tool.^2 In my primary academic field (medieval kingship) alcohol and feasting were ways for kings to reach out and connect with his subjects, and make his presence and rule felt in parts of the realm. The exclusivity of such events also reinforced certain aristocratic or kingly privileges and played a key sociopolitical role.
Turning our attention back to Russia I think these frameworks (especially those used in the WWI study) can help us see the importance of alcohol specifically vodka in Russian societies. Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia's ethnography of a Russian village in the 19th C. provides a valuable insight into what village life was like.^3 She describes the importance of alcohol in many rituals of social bonding and kinship forming, things like marriage, courtship, or celebrating the end of a harvest. Drinking was an important part of life for a Russian peasant even on a more simple level, drinking in the village tavern with fellow laborers was a simple way to bond over their plight. Semyonova's book is a rather harrowing account (to the modern eyes) of what life from birth to death was like, including topics like infanticide, law, etc. Throughout her work we can see the importance of vodka and drinking both in terms of social rituals but also a means of coping with the brutality of daily life in Russia's villages. Vodka consumption also provided peasants with a way to show off their success/their wealth, being able to continually buy drinks and keep up with other peasants was a sign of social standing and wealth.
David Moon also discusses the importance of vodka to peasants, again emphasizing it's importance to peasant's social and cultural rituals, but also adding that the sale of vodka was primarily controlled by the state and was a key means of generating revenue for the state. He uses a quote by David Christian that I feel sums up the relationship the peasants had to alcohol consumption and the state's desire to control the revenue it produced: "It was the state's thirst for revenue as much as the peasants' thirst for forgetfulness that made vodka so important at both the national and local levels of Russian life".^4 Moon also writes that during local elections candidates would attempt to buy votes by distributing quantities of vodka to the peasants. The importance of vodka to peasant can be seen when in 1859 lower quality vodka that was sold for higher prices, as mandated by the law, resulted in numerous riots against taverns.
Social cohesion in peasant communities was especially important as everyone depended upon one another. Communal focus in land tenure allowed peasants to overcome the challenges of peasant life, things like exploitation by elites, and natural disasters/famine. Peasants would help each other out in times of need to ensure that the health of the community as a whole was still good. Closer communal ties also allowed them to work their land more efficiently, growing more crops for the whole community. These are just a few examples of the importance of social cohesion in peasant communities that was fostered by the social rituals helped along by alcohol/vodka.
Hopefully this helps to show that Russian consumption of vodka is not just a stereotype, but had serious social applications, it formed integral parts of social rituals for peasants and helped their communities to function better, to create kinship ties, and to forget the brutality of peasant life, if even for just a second. That of course doesn't mean that rampant and widespread consumption of vodka and alcohol did not have terrible implications for health and socially in Russian society, for example Semyonova's book is riddled with examples of alcohol fueled domestic violence which could have profound effects of society. Despite this it is still important to understand what vodka meant to society.
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