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This was one of the pet peeves of the Lykov family, descendants of persecuted beard wearers, to the point that they moved into the wilderness of Siberia for 40 years, missing any notion of WW2 in the process: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-rus...
thanks for this! very interesting rabbit hole!
If you search youtube, theres an excellent video of a hiker going out to see the last remaining Lykov (Agafia i think). Its a beautiful area and a fascinating story.
The article states that this was part of an effort to reorient the country's culture. That might seem strange to Americans / Western Europeans today, but this was not an isolated case and while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing (with the right approach and an amount of luck).
A more modern example is Turkey, where Atatürk revised script, clothing, education, and many other aspects of the country's culture. While no one will every know "what would have been", it's arguable that these reforms made Turkey more "European" and less "Middle Eastern" - which I think was the intent.
So, today Turkey is more like an Italy than a Syria (though that is changing), and perhaps those reforms are part of the reason why.
As a Turkish person, we are reminded of this pretty much every day. However, it’s also important to avoid the cult of personality: Ataturk’s reforms did not come out of nothing. Turkey at that point had been a cosmopolitan society of many communities for almost a thousand years, many of which were non-Muslim and some of which were western. That kind of permanent interface was arguably one of the things that gave Turkey the ability to lunge for a western, secular democracy, and more importantly, manage to keep it (nascent as it is) for a hundred years, up until now.
Erdogan has been in power for twenty years by now — much as he would have loved to dismantle it, this is as far as it has gotten. Imperfect as it is, if it manages to hand power off of Erdogan in 2023 peacefully, Turkish democracy will have passed the acid test. If that doesn’t work, nobody knows.
PS - Excellent second paragraph, you're right - but I've been hearing that "this is the critical moment" for years. Are in in Turkey now? Where?
Excuse me for being inquisitive...
Do you think that Imamoglu (Mayor of Istanbul) will run for presidency and win?
Is there a reason to worry about a possible coup or large scale voting fraud if Erdogan is likely to lose?
The current constitution of Turkey gives a lot of power to the President. Is the opposition ready to draft a new constitution with more checks and balances?
Absolutely. Actually the reason I posted that comment in the first place was to solicit reactions from Turks (I am not Turk, but have spent years in Turkey.) The cult of personality factor is high, and somewhat concerning. But (maybe) understandable given what it's counterbalancing, and the background of the people it's intended to influence.
A very interesting example of a similar but seriously different process was the Meiji revolution in Japan. It restored the emperor and pushed westernization into high gear — Western science, technology, and culture was studied very intensively.
Along with that, the traditional Japanese culture was jealously preserved in other areas, so as to combine the best and most important Japanese traits and traditions with the most powerful and useful European knowledge.
This is very unlike the effort of Peter the Great, who tried hard to make Russia more genuinely Western and replace as much traditional structure everywhere as he could. The success was mixed, of course.
> while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing
That's called euro-centrism isn't it. And every westerner believes wholeheartedly that it is the best most constructive thing to do. So it is neither right nor wrong politically.
But it does dull the world when every place you go to is Europe in microcosm. That is a true vision of dystopian hell itself.
Countries are allowed to change. A country choosing to adopt the ways of another is only evil if it is forced upon them by outsiders. The leader of Turkey wanted to take his country in a particular direction. That is a valid local decision by a local leader. What is euro-centric is to dictate to those local leaders, to tell countries that they shouldn't change their culture as they see fit. Other countries are not museums needing protection from change.
You can remove the "euro" part from it, and pick any other successful civilization which produced a rich culture. E.g. Chinese culture influenced its neighbors to a very significant extent, and certain traits of it were consciously emulated, say, in Japan and Korea at certain times.
Nobody pressured Turkey (or Russia, in the era of Peter the Great) into trying to become more like Europe. They chose it on their own. If you're going to say that their choice was wrong, that would be rather paternalistic, don't you think?
Spend a couple years in Italy. Spend a couple years in Syria. Come back and tell me which you prefer.
Well we know what happened. Europe rose to ascendancy in the 17th and 18th century.
I think it is fair to say he bet on the right horse.
I don't think it started with Atatürk at all. The Ottomans were trying to follow a more European model for quite some time before WW1. Hence their close relation with Germany and folly of entering WW1.
It's not quite so simple. Peter often gets criticized for borrowing the book on the parts he did like (science, engineering), but meticulously avoiding all the parts he didn't fancy - especially the political philosophy. Russia still acquired some; it was simply unavoidable with sending so many people to study abroad. But so long as we're speaking of would-have-beens, if Peter didn't do it, a later monarch might have carried it out in a way that didn't keep Russia lagging the rest of Europe politically by a century.
A modern example are the various bans on hijab or other coverings
History is written by strong leaders with a vision.
In Peter the Great's case it was making Russia a European power.
Peter the Great built St. Petersburg and one of the most spectacular palaces in the world called Peterhof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterhof_Palace), a must to visit when you are there.
Peter himself didn't much care for grandeur and so had a very modest building for himself that is part of the tour of the palace, with lots of baths in it. There is a list of "Peter's Rules" hanging on the wall in that "small palace" that were enforced, very short, including:
- You can have one manservant only, no matter your position [the space was really small]
- You bunk where you are assigned to, no trading, and no complaining about it
- No boots on the bed
I love the reasonableness of these!
This decision -- along with many others inaugurated by Peter -- contributed to the perception of a european/slavic bifurcation in the Russian soul. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and many others wrestled with the implications of this centuries later. I daresay it still shapes russian self-perception.
Not just perception - there was a very real conflict in the 19th century between traditional Russian values and western ideas such as nihilism and socialism. Dostoevsky was such an idealist in his youth, then turning his back on those movements after being imprisoned in hard labor camp. In his book Demons, he very much groks the dangers of these western ideas, which led to the disastrous 70 year reign of the Bolsheviks
If you take an objective look at the USSR from 1917 to 1990, while there was a lot of bad things, they also completely industrialized the country, literacy rates went from 28% to 99.7% (triple it in the first 15 years, by trying to teach everyone to read their native language first instead of Russian first). They were the first country to put a man in space. I'm not sure that it was all disastrous.
Bolshevism was a disaster, but the traditional Russian society that preceded it was not much better. The Russia that overthrew its Mongol overlords never managed to develop the social and cultural institutions required to form a stable and prosperous society. Novgorod had them, but it was one of the first victims of Muscovy.
There was perhaps a chance in the 19th century, when Alexander II tried to turn Russia into a constitutional monarchy. The chance died when nihilists killed him and his son reversed the course. The same ideas that gave rise to social democracy in the West turned into Marxism-Leninism in Russia. One was a great success story, another was an equally great catastrophe.
Why, socialism was fine with most Russians, that is, the peasants. Check out the obschina thing [1] which was the traditional structure of non-noble country living; it's full of communal and rather socialist institutions.
The revolutionaries like the young Dostoevsky and a number of other Russian left intellectuals were quite westernized, and had the French revolution as an example, with its franternité, egalité et liberté. (Interestingly, not the American revolution which was hugely more successful but not leftist.)
Coincidentally, I recently stumbled across a really great lecture series with maybe 50 hours of great university lecture style content on Imperial Russia and I've been listening to it as I go to bed. Around episode 7 or 8 I believe he discusses this episode. If anyone wants to learn about something off their normal radar, I really recommend this lecture series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qsss5phzpg&list=PLEETkM6vwQ...
It starts off kind of slow. Id say the first episode is probably the worst of the series but the guy's got a captive student audience so I don't think he's prioritizing reeling in the audience.
Thanks for this, it sounds interesting
I bought a few replicas of the pictured token for my friends in Austin, all of whom have these Rasputin-ass facial carpets. https://www.beardtoken.com
It sounds like being ruled over by a socialite.
I don't know anything about Peter, did he take anything apart from fashion from his grand tour?
It says he worked at a shipyard which is admirable but no further mention of what impression that left.
He was an extremely active ruler. Founded the Russian navy, founded St. Petersburg. He was indeed also very interested in all kinds of science and technology and tried to import these to Russia.
https://www.amazon.com/Peter-Great-Robert-K-Massie-audiobook...
On the other hand, it seems that all the monarchs of this time basically treated their land as their inherited, God-given wealth. So in that respect, Peter and practically all others were extremely ego-centric and shallow. Modernization did not extend to democratization.
There were still some substantial differences between Russian take on monarchy, and what was common in Western Europe at the time. While European monarchs claimed divine right to rule, the concept of subjects' rights was already developed by then, and not just in England; rulers required some legitimate justification for the more drastic actions. In Russia, in contrast, literally every person in the country was deemed a slave to the ruler, to be disposed of at will - a legacy it inherited from the Byzantines via the adoption of Eastern Orthodoxy, and later reinforced by Mongol customs during the occupation.
Peter reformed Russian army, build an effective navy, won a few wars, and founded St. Petersburg, among other things.
All the later history of Russia was written in a narrative like "Pyotr the Great was the first sensible tzar". Even communists bought it. It says maybe more about who was paying historians for their work, than about Pyotr, but in any case it means that repercussions of his work lasted for centuries.
I'd say, that the most sensible tzar was Feodor, who worked before Pyotr, who worked on the same goal but much more sensible, it was a patient work through decades, but history remembers crazy kings, not sensible ones.
> It says he worked at a shipyard which is admirable but no further mention of what impression that left.
He also learned in Europe how to perform tooth extraction, and liked to pull teeth of members of his retinue. It is said, that it was a great entertainment for him to found someone with toothache.
A digression for sure, but I really love the pseudo-historical comedy drama The Great, in which a beard ban is a minor plot point. It plays merry hell with historical accuracy, but is tons of fun.
I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in history/russia/ or good stories in general:
https://www.harvard.com/book/peter_the_great_his_life_and_wo...
Peter the Great's life is extremely interesting, and that book, while being a biography, honestly reads like an exciting novel. There are so many "game of thrones"-like moments in his life.
As someone with a beard, I just cant imagine shaving every morning. Seems like a huge pain in the ass and waste of time. You do you if thats your thing though.
Eh, for me it takes less time than brushing my teeth.
Then again under lockdown it's more like once or twice a week than daily. I suppose that counts against my argument though, if it was so easy why don't I still do it daily?
As someone who shaves... Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I view it.
I tried growing a beard for a while, but I found that it was itchy, and anything I did to try to alleviate that was as much work as shaving, or even more.
Recently, I switched electric razors again and it's a lot quicker and easier than the ones I'd been using (for like 5-7 years), and it's back to "meh whatever" category again instead of "Ugh, do I have to do this?"f
Someone said it takes less time than brushing their teeth, and that's not quite true for me... But my electric toothbrush says I should brush for 2 minutes, and my electric razor says I should spend less than 3 minutes shaving so I won't irritate my skin, so it's pretty close to that.
It certainly would have been then. Today even sandpaper beards like my own are quickwork with an electric trimmer.
Have you ever tried trimming significant facial hair with a pair of scissors? Holy hell is that tedious!
In the days before the safety razor, not that many men shaved every day. Supposedly it was WW I that created the daily shaving habit in the US. Before that, it was common to be shaved by the barber.
I find shaving pleasurable. Something about the ritual and the smoothness and clean feeling sensation of my face afterwards.
That said, I often grow a beard during ski season. Because I just enjoy the mountain man look to go with my telemark skiing, winter clothes, accompanying border collie covered in snow, and beer belly.
I prefer a beard because I'm lazy, but when I shaved, an electric shaver made the process quick and easy.
As silly as it sounds the policing of fashion and religious battles over appearances are still active across all of Europe.
Let's not pretend that there wasn't serious, and at times deadly, anti-semitic overtones to the requirement to shave beards, and the financial penalties that came from seeking exemption.
The Beard Tax was notoriously leveraged against religious jews, forbidden by law to shave their beards. The "civilized" authorities took much advantage of this.
sorry, man, you did misfire here. There is of course no question about antisemitism in Russia, it is just that the Russia of Peter the Great didn't have a number of Jews, especially not converted ("religious jews, forbidden by law to shave their beards"), to speak about. The beard tax was really a symbol of breaking the conservative Russian opposition (like that top nobility - "boayre" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyar#/media/File:Bojaren.jpg).
FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Russian_Em...
"Before the 18th century Russia maintained an exclusionary policy towards Jews, in accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox Church. When asked about admitting Jews into the Empire, Peter the Great stated "I prefer to see in our midst nations professing Mohammedanism and paganism rather than Jews. They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor to eradicate evil, not to multiply it.""
My understanding is the beard tax was in part a dig at the authority of the Orthodox Church.
Jews in Russian Empire at that time would mostly be in Pale Of Settlement area, not Petersburg.