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Virginia Tobacco in Russia Under Peter the Great

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

O. J. Frederiksen
O. J. Frederiksen*
Affiliation:
Miami University
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Extract

That it was Peter the Great who introduced tobacco into Russia on a large scale is well known, but the details of this early commerce in what the Russians called “nicotine” are less familiar — for instance, that the tobacco imported was American, that the initiative in opening the trade came largely from America, and that the fulfillment of the contracts became involved in complications that at times approached the burlesque.

There was of course a considerable amount of tobacco consumed in Russia long before the time of Peter. It is true that the use of the “abomination to God” was forbidden by the Orthodox Church on the Biblical grounds that it is not that which entereth into a man that defileth him, but that which proceedeth from him. However, among the foreigners, especially the Germans and the Dutch, and to some extent even among court officials, tobacco was openly smoked in the early sixteen hundreds to such a degree that under Michael Romanov it became necessary to forbid both Russians and foreigners to possess or to “drink” tobacco, or to buy or sell it under pain of death and confiscation of property, a decree to this effect being issued in 1634. Michael's heir, Alexei, was a staunch conservative who frowned upon foreign ways, repeated Michael's anti-tobacco legislation in his Ulozhenie or law code, and even after his quarrel with the Patriarch Nikon continued to uphold the conduct prescribed by the Church.

Type
Research Article
Information
Slavonic and East European Review American Series , Volume 2 , March 1943 , pp. 40 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1943

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References

1 M. M. Bogoslovski, Petr I (1941), II, 286–287.

2 W. Palmer, The Patriarch and the Tsar (London, 1871–73), VI, 1535.

3 Bogoslovski, loc. cit., p. 287.

4 Ibid., loc. cit.

5 Gordon, Patrick, Tagebuch (Aberdeen, 1859), II, 507, entry for February 8Google Scholar.

6 Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov, 1st Series, III, 1570, quoted in Pis'ma i bumagi Petra Velikago, hereafter cited as Pis'ma (St. Petersburg, 1883–1912), I, Note to No. 215.

7 Pis'ma, I, No. 215. From Amsterdam, December 31, 1697.

8 Ibid., I, Note to No. 215. Received by Peter March 7, 1698.

9 Polnoe Sobranie Zatonov, 1st Series, III, Nos. 1580, 1581, cited in Pis'ma, I, Note to No. 215.

10 W. Palmer, op. cit., V, 1007.

11 Bogoslovski, op. cit., II, 288.

12 Hist MSS Comm. Reports, MSS of the Most Hon. the Marquess of Bath, III: The Prior Papers, pp. 148–155, in MacInnes, C. M., The Early English Tobacco Trade (London, 1926) pp. 171–172 Google Scholar.

13 Bd. of Trade, Virg. 6, No. 25. Petition of Merchants of Virginia and Maryland to the King, 10 Aug. 1697, in C. M. MacInnes, op. cit., p. 177.

14 Pam. dipl. snošenii, VIII, 1049, in Bogoslovski, op. cit., II, 289.

15 Pis'ma, I, Note to No. 229. Both letters March 11, 1698.

16 Perry, John, State of Muscovy (London, 1716), p. 167 Google Scholar.

17 Pis'ma, I, Note to No. 229. Voznitsyn to Peter, March 11, 1698.

18 ibid., I, Note to No. 230. Vinius to Peter, April 16, 1698.

19 Bogoslovski, op. cit., II, 338.

20 The full contract is given in Pis'ma, I, No. 234.

21 Sbornik imperalorskago istoričeskago obščestva, further cited as Sbornik, St. Petersburg, 1867–, LXVI, 37–38. Townshend to Ward, March 11, 1729.

22 Pis'ma, III, No. 818. Reply to memo by Whitworth.

23 Ibid., III, No. 787. A memo by Whitworth, with notes.

24 Ibid., III, No. 818.

25 Bogoslovski, op. cit., II, 288.

26 Ibid., II, 393.

27 Pis'ma, I, No. 369. April 8, 1701.

28 Ibid., No. 818.

29 British Mus. pamphlet, “The Case of the Contractors with the C'zar of Muscovy for he sole importation of Tobacco into his Dominions, 1700?” in C. M. MacInnes, op. cit., p. 177.

30 Pis'ma, I, No. 267. Peter to William III, April 10, 1699.

31 Sbornik, XXXIX, No. 11. Whitworth to Harley, March 7, 1705.

32 Pis'ma, III, No. 860. Golovin to Matvcyev.

33 Memorandum presented by Whitworth and remarks on it, later than March 12, 1705, in Pis'ma, III, No. 787; reply to this memorandum, before May 5, 1705, ibid., III, No. 818.

34 Ibid., III, No. 818.

35 The documents for this amusing episode, including minutes of the Board of Trade and Plantations, and of the Privy Council, are given in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, IV, 55–63; William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine, Series 2, III, 250–258; Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, II, 1680–1720, pp. 487–489. Whitworth, Hedges, and Harley corresponded at length regarding it, Sbornik, XXXIX, Nos. 17, 23, 35, 36, 38, 40. The following account is from these sources.

36 Sbornik, XXXIX, No. 11. Whitworth to Harley, March 7, 1705.

37 Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, from April, 1704 to February, 1708–1709 (London, 1720), p. 233.

38 Pis'ma, III, No. 940 and Note. Peter to Kurbatov, October 6, 1705; Kurbatov to Peter, October 27, 1705.

39 Ibid., IV, No. 1142. From Minsk, March 7, 1706.

40 Ibid., IV, Nos. 1189 and 1191.

41 Ibid., IV, Note to No. 1189.

42 Sbornik, XXXIX, Nos. 71, 75. Whitworth to Harley, June 26 (July 7) and 7/18 August, 1706.

43 Ibid., XXXIX, No. 46. Whitworth to Harley, 17/28 November, 1705, from Grodno.

44 Pis'ma, IV, Note to No. 1468. Whitworth to Harley, November 26 (December 7), 1706. Ibid., IV, 348. Whitworth to Harley, December 24 (January 4), 1706 (1707).

45 Footnote 28: British Public Record Office, C05–1315, Document 16, Correspondence of the Board of Trade, cited by Wertenbaker, T. J., The Planters of Colonial Virginia, Princeton, 1922, p. 148 Google Scholar.

46 Wertenbaker, op. cit., p. 149.

47 Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, II, 536.

48 Pis'ma, IV, No. 1189. Peter to Kurbatov, April 3, 1706.

49 Sbornik, L, No. 72. Boyle to Whitworth, June 21, 1709. Ibid., L, No. 94. Whitworth to Boyle, 16/27 September, 1709.

50 Ibid., XI, 45. Peter to Solovyov, January 16, 1716.

51 Ibid., XI, 325. Note on copy of letter Peter to Senate, July 10, 1716.

52 March 3, 1717, Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov, V, 490, reprinted in Reformy Petra I, a collection of documents compiled by V. I. Lebedev (Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1937), p. 14.