The History of Taverns in Russia

Ivan Gavrilovich Pryzhov (1827-1885) was a Russian publicist, historian, ethnographer, and revolutionary. The son of a peasant, a veteran of the 1812 war who earned hereditary nobility, Ivan Pryzhov managed to receive a good education but became fascinated by revolutionary ideas in his youth and found himself among those accused in the infamous "Nechaev 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 studies, 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 life of merchants, or the very bottom of society - the poor, the holy fools, the religious zealots, and the tavern rabble. This publication presents the works of I. G. Pryzhov dedicated to the history of the emergence of drinking establishments in Russia as a replacement for the traditional inn. The researcher examines the birth, flourishing, and decline of this peculiar folk culture and the detrimental influence of "state-run taverns" on the lives and morals of peasants and urban populace.