1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910824691403321

Autore

Schrad Mark Lawrence

Titolo

Vodka politics : alcohol, autocracy, and the secret history of the Russian state / / Mark Lawrence Schrad

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Oxford University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-19-046881-5

0-19-938947-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (514 p.)

Disciplina

362.2920947

Soggetti

Drinking of alcoholic beverages - Political aspects - Russia - History

Drinking of alcoholic beverages - Political aspects - Soviet Union - History

Drinking of alcoholic beverages - Political aspects - Russia (Federation)

Vodka industry - Political aspects - Russia - History

Vodka industry - Political aspects - Soviet Union - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; VODKA POLITICS; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; NOTE ON PROPER NAMES; PREFACE; 1. Introduction; 2. Vodka Politics; 3. Cruel Liquor: Ivan the Terrible and Alcohol in the Muscovite Court; 4. Peter the Great: Modernization and Intoxication; 5. Russia's Empresses: Power, Conspiracy, and Vodka; 6. Murder, Intrigue, and the Mysterious Origins of Vodka; 7 Why Vodka? Russian Statecraft and the Origins of Addiction; 8. Vodka and the Origins of Corruption in Russia; 9. Vodka Domination, Vodka Resistance . . . Vodka Emancipation?; 10. The Pen, the Sword, and the Bottle

11. Drunk at the Front: Alcohol and the Imperial Russian Army12. Nicholas the Drunk, Nicholas the Sober; 13. Did Prohibition Cause the Russian Revolution?; 14. Vodka Communism; 15. Industrialization, Collectivization, Alcoholization; 16. Vodka and Dissent in the Soviet Union; 17. Gorbachev and the (Vodka) Politics of Reform; 18. Did Alcohol Make the Soviets Collapse?; 19. The Bottle and Boris Yeltsin; 20. Alcohol and the Demodernization of Russia; 21. The Russian Cross;



22. The Rise and Fall of Putin's Champion; 23. Medvedev against History; 24. An End to Vodka Politics?; Notes; Index

Sommario/riassunto

Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a series of historical investigations stretching from Ivan the Terrible through Vladimir Putin, Vodka Politics presents the secret history of the Russian state i