Guardianship for Popular Sobriety in Russia at the Beginning of 20th Century: from Wine Monopoly to “Dry Law”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the guardianship of popular sobriety — institutions created by the government of the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century to organize the fight against excessive alcohol consumption at the provincial and district levels. The study describes the situation with the consumption of alcoholic beverages in Russia at the turn of the XIX—XX centuries, provides the main provisions of the state wine monopoly, introduced in 1895 with the direct participation of the Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte. Based on the Charter of Guardianship of People’s Sobriety, the authors describe their powers, composition, and features of work organization. Based on the analysis of diverse sources (including unpublished archival sources), the article characterizes the diverse activities of guardianship in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as its assessment by contemporaries. The conclusion is made about the relatively low efficiency of the work of sober institutions due to their bureaucracy and insufficient funding. The article describes the problem of reforming the guardianship, which was discussed with varying intensity in the 1900—1910s in the Ministry of Finance, the State Council, public and zemstvo circles. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the problems faced by the guardianship of popular sobriety during the First World War after the introduction of the “Prohibition”. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt to analyze the entire set of issues related to the activities of guardianship in the period under review, starting from documents of a legal and office-work nature, statistical materials, periodicals, journalistic and memoir literature.

Keywords

• guardianship of people’s sobriety
• wine monopoly
• “no alcohol law”
• russian village
• alcohol consumption
• struggle for sobriety