Drunkenness and the Peasant Question in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia

In the early nineteenth century, the agricultural press, state actors, entrepreneurs in the vodka trade, and individual landlords (pomeshchiki) debated the question of peasant drunkenness, focusing on three main issues. First, they questioned whether there really was a problem of peasant drunkenness. Second, those who believed there was a problem debated its cause: access to alcohol, lack of oversight, or an innate inclination to drink. Third, they debated how best to fix the problem. These discussions became particularly acute during the Great Reforms, when Emancipation brought dramatic changes to peasant oversight and the abolition of tax farming brought changes to access to alcohol. Above all, the debates required reconceptualizing the Russian peasant. No longer was the peasant envisioned as passive and acted upon; instead, peasants were now imagined as active agents of their own destiny.