Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
Im Auftrag des Instituts für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung Regensburg
herausgegeben von Martin Schulze Wessel und Dietmar Neutatz
Ausgabe: 61 (2013), 1, S. 126
Verfasst von: Max J. Okenfuss
Tobacco in Russian History and Culture. From the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Edited by Matthew P. Romaniello and Tricia Starks. London [etc.]: Routledge, 2009. X, 295 S., Tab., Abb. = Routledge Studies in Cultural History, 10. ISBN: 978-0-415-99655-6.
Writing the history of commodities is an established academic pursuit, and the story of Russia’s love of alcohol is fairly well documented. The history of tobacco in Russia? – not so much. The present collection, nurtured in three sessions at the AAASS National Convention in 2007, is therefore especially welcome both for its scholarship and for the generous bibliography found in the notes to each contribution.
Tobacco was banned in Muscovy for seventy years in the seventeenth century, a prohibition unmatched elsewhere. Today, “more people smoke in Russia than just about anywhere else in the world.” Early-modern and twentieth-century studies dominate this volume. No fewer than four of its fifteen substantive essays are dedicated to the period before Tsar Peter removed the ban in 1697. Four more deal with the recent period, including an interview with a late Soviet tobacco-plant director, the West’s cigarette tobacco invasion from Cold War to the post-Soviet era, and the contemporary situation where smoke stains all aspects of public life. Sandwiched between these bookends are fine essays on 19th-century literary images of smoking, Old Believer aversion to tobacco, studies of tobacco advertising and of the transition from private to Soviet production, and of anti-tobacco campaigns.
Carefully edited and produced, this fine volume summarizes the current state of the field, and will become the essential starting point for future research.
Max J. Okenfuss, St. Louis
Zitierweise: Max J. Okenfuss über: Tobacco in Russian History and Culture. From the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Edited by Matthew P. Romaniello and Tricia Starks. London [etc.]: Routledge, 2009. X, 295 S., Tab., Abb. = Routledge Studies in Cultural History, 10. ISBN: 978-0-415-99655-6, http://www.oei-dokumente.de/JGO/Rez/Okenfuss_Romaniello_Tobacco_in_Russian_History.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)
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