The History of Taverns in Russia

Ivan Gavrilovich Pryzhov (1827-1885) - a Russian publicist, historian, ethnographer, and revolutionary. The son of a peasant, a veteran of the 1812 war, who earned hereditary nobility, Ivan Pryzhov was able to receive a good education, but became engrossed in revolutionary ideas in his youth and found himself among those accused in the famous "Nechayev case," which prompted Dostoevsky to create the novel "Demons." Pryzhov was stripped of his nobility and sentenced to hard labor, but continued to write and publish until the end of his days. His unique ethnographic observations and inquiries, striking in their insight and depth of penetration into the subject, provide a key to understanding Russian life, whether it be the lifestyle of Siberian Old Believers, the existence of merchants, or the very bottom of society - the poor, holy fools, hysterics, and tavern folk. This publication features the works of I. G. Pryzhov dedicated to the history of the emergence of drinking houses in Rus instead of traditional taverns. The researcher examines the birth, flourishing, and decline of this peculiar folk culture and the harmful influence of "state-owned taverns" on the lives and morals of peasants and urban dwellers.