Everyone in the late Russian Empire was in agreement: the country had a vodka problem. But what were its causes and how should it be dealt with? For answers, many turned to Ivan Churikov, a peasant who became a St Petersburg faith healer after suffering personal tragedy. But his attempts to form a sobriety movement involved him in an endless struggle with the Orthodox Church, one that occasionally cost him his freedom. In this episode, we follow Churikov and his struggles, looking at the alcohol policies of the imperial Russian state and the civic activism that tried to save the empire from drowning in a sea of vodka.

Sources

P. Herrlinger, Holy Sobriety in Modern Russia: A Faith Healer and His Followers (Ithaca and London: Northern Illinois University Press, 2023)

P. Herlihy, The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka and Politics in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

P. Herlihy, ‘The Russian Vodka Prohibition of 1914 and Its Consequences’ in E. U. Savona, M. A. R. Kleiman, and F. Calderoni, eds., Dual Markets: Comparative Approaches to Regulation (Cham: Springer, 2017): 193-206.

P. Herlihy, ‘"Joy of the Rus’": Rites and Rituals of Russian Drinking’, The Russian Review, vol. 50, no. 2 (1991): 131-147.

R. J. Abbott, ‘Alcohol Control and Russian Politics, 1863-1876’, Russian History, vol. 43 (2016): 87-100.

I. H. Mäkinen and T. C. Reitan, ‘Continuity and Change in Russian Alcohol Consumption from the Tsars to Transition’, Social History, vol. 31, no. 2 (2006): 160-179.

D. Christian, ‘Vodka and Corruption in Russia on the Eve of Emancipation’, Slavic Review, vol. 46, no. 3/4 (1987): 471-488.

I. N. Fedotova, ‘K istorii monastyrskikh tiurem v Rossii: Suzdal’skaia Spaso-Evfimieva obitel’ kak mesto lisheniia svobody (konets XVIII – nachalo XX veka)’, Intelligentsiia i mir, no. 2 (2018): 75-86.