[HN Gopher] Peter the Great's Beard Tax
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Peter the Great's Beard Tax
Author : lermontov
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-07-26 05:21 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| simonh wrote:
| 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.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| 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
| its_nikita wrote:
| 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.
| lordleft wrote:
| 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.
| boxerab wrote:
| 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
| nine_k wrote:
| 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
| franternite, egalite et liberte. (Interestingly, not the
| American revolution which was hugely more successful but not
| leftist.)
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obshchina
| soperj wrote:
| 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.
| nIHOPp6MQw0f5ut wrote:
| The west industrialized without gulags.
| c-smile wrote:
| Oh, really?
|
| What about plantations? Who worked there? Sigh, under
| each stone of European squares you can find 1kg of gold
| that came from the "third world".
| etc-hosts wrote:
| The West didn't have land hungry pre WW2 Germany next to
| it.
| krzyk wrote:
| > The West didn't have land hungry pre WW2 Germany next
| to it.
|
| Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll assume it is not.
|
| France and Poland send their regards.
| sonthonax wrote:
| 'The West' industrialised with slave plantations and
| child labour.
| soperj wrote:
| Remind me which country has the largest incarcerated
| population in the world?
| krzyk wrote:
| And also killed many people (more than WW2 alone), and
| basically created dark ages for unlucky countries that were
| "saved" by the soviets.
| User23 wrote:
| Most people with a regard for human life consider mass
| murder[1] on a scale hitherto unseen[2], which is really
| saying something given that the world had just seen WW2, to
| be disastrous.
|
| [1] Thus not including battlefield deaths of soldiers.
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_S
| oviet...
| danielodievich wrote:
| I barely overlapped with both of my great-grandfathers but
| fortunately one of them left his memoirs behind.
|
| in there it says that he ran away from home early and
| "during revolution was just a street hooligan breaking
| streetlamps for amusement". He did eventually complete
| engineering school and wound up designing and building
| ports and hydroelectric dams during all the heavy
| industrialization and the war. He said he was happy about
| that change that allowed him to become educated.
| 988747 wrote:
| You must ask yourself a question here: did they accomplish
| all of that because of the socialism, or despite it?
| c-smile wrote:
| Idea was good. Socialism works quite well at critical
| times.
|
| Just in case: pretty much each country, including US,
| handles COVID problem in typical socialistic state way.
| int_19h wrote:
| Funny thing about Stalin's "socialism": he actually
| reverted high school to being a paid extra, not free and
| universal.
| 988747 wrote:
| Socialism is a perfect system. I mean: socialism is
| probably the system that God uses to rule his Angels in
| Heaven. It has only one tiny flaw: in order to work it
| requires the society to be perfect as well, and most
| importantly completely selfless. But for less than
| perfect societies capitalism works better, because it can
| turn people's flaws (i.e.: greed, ambition) for the
| common good.
| nemo44x wrote:
| A planned economy is great when you have a few well
| defined tasks to really worry about. But you can't really
| become dynamic and resilient like a market economy can.
| So certain goals, like getting everyone to read or
| building a spaceship work reasonably well but it simply
| can't compete with a market economy in the longer run and
| dies a death of a thousand capitalist cuts eventually.
|
| The Chinese probably have it more right than the Soviets
| in that they manage a few big things and then let the
| market more or less self manage to a point so long as the
| CCP is getting their cut and gives their blessing.
| tenfourwookie wrote:
| Stalin would sign pages and pages of names for execution
| before going off for a nice weekend at the dacha, just
| because, let's say for expediency.
|
| You cannot rationalize away the horrors of 20th century
| Russia, certainly not with these bullet points.
|
| _So we killed 30 million people, but look! Sputnik!_
| shrubble wrote:
| The 60 million people killed during the Bokshevik reign are
| unavailable for comment, however.
| soperj wrote:
| Seems completely objective.
| [deleted]
| c-smile wrote:
| That's exaggeration of course. Many but not THAT many.
|
| Story from my step-grandfather:
|
| He was a village school director and teacher in Ukraine
| at times of 1932/33 famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...). With students from
| senior classes he developed piece of farm land just to
| feed junior classes - make real breakfast at list for
| them.
|
| Each day he walked to school with knapsack - prepared for
| detention, as all agricultural surplus should go to
| collectors. All that was real, indeed.
|
| ...
|
| At WWII, he served as an artillery lieutenant, literally
| walked by foot from Voronezh/Russia to Berlin/Germany.
| They were crying "for the Motherland, for the Stalin" all
| way along. And that one was also real.
|
| Later he was a father of an academic and two doctors of
| science in USSR.
|
| History is really not that black and white.
| jltsiren wrote:
| 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.
| hereforphone wrote:
| 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 Ataturk 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.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > 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.
| nine_k wrote:
| 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.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Spend a couple years in Italy. Spend a couple years in Syria.
| Come back and tell me which you prefer.
| ploika wrote:
| The one not at war obviously. Being in Europe didn't save
| Bosnia from being a pretty awful place to be in the 90s.
| tdsamardzhiev wrote:
| Our part of Europe is... special.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Why, so I can visit the Lamborghini factory and pizza
| restaurant?
|
| If you think my statement sounds like a shallow cliche then
| I would remind you that a group of people connected loosely
| by the idea of a state have cultural norms and traditions
| that make their little corner of the world unique...and Id
| say this surpasses the idea of materialism/unbounded
| consumption that undertones every conversation about
| "Europe Vs ...." measuring progress by how many cappucino
| cafes per square kilometer is a rather dull way to view the
| world at the very least.
| FredPret wrote:
| When people talk about this they simply mean that
| cappuccino cafes are better than landmines, and that
| Italy beats Syria by that good vs bad metric.
|
| It's not an argument that we should replace all culture
| with a European facsimile, merely that some movement
| towards the proven model for success is needed.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| This might be relevant if world history began in 1900.
| romwell wrote:
| Italy wasn't the nicest place to be in during the 1940s,
| which would be a fair comparison as far as war-torn states
| go
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| 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?
| simonh wrote:
| I don't think an authoritarian leader dictating cultural
| norms is really the same as a country 'choosing' it on it's
| own.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| 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.
| nine_k wrote:
| 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.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| History is written by strong leaders with a vision. In Peter
| the Great's case it was making Russia a European power.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| 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.
| hereforphone wrote:
| 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.
| hereforphone wrote:
| 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?
| rolleiflex wrote:
| There are elections coming in 2023 (as scheduled) and
| possibly earlier if the opposition manages to force it due
| to current low confidence in the government. All prior
| 'this is critical' moments were either local elections
| (cannot affect the national gov't) or sort of wishful
| thinking on the opposition's part. This one is different,
| because Erdogan is not only not polling first in a _very_
| long time, he is polling _fourth and the last_.
|
| It also is significant because the collapse of TRY to half
| its prior value was both swift and for the first time ever,
| visibly caused by bad leadership.
| hereforphone wrote:
| For fun I walked around the lise that was the polling
| center during an election 4-5 years ago. There were _poll
| workers_ caught stealing votes. There was a vehicle
| without a license plate waiting _outside the front door_
| of the school to steal the ballot box if necessary.
|
| There is also a massive influx of Syrian refugees who may
| be allowed to vote... and these refugees are said to
| almost entirely vote according to the Islamic
| perspective.
|
| I don't see Erdogan losing if the election were to be
| held today. But a lot can change in a couple of years,
| and as you say the economic situation may aid the
| opposition.
| simonh wrote:
| The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well.
| It was passed when it became evident many of the protesters
| fighting back against the coup were political opponents of
| Erdogan. Hopefully that's settled one particular question -
| no more coups, even if it's against your political
| opponents.
|
| The coming election is I think another legitimately
| critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple
| critical tests, in a relatively short period of time in the
| grand scheme of things, but the important thing is it
| passes them.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| Turkey's adolescence is full of trials indeed. Hopefully
| one day we'll be able to look back at this and call it
| life experience.
| int_19h wrote:
| 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.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| 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.
| ordu wrote:
| 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.
| vtail wrote:
| Peter reformed Russian army, build an effective navy, won a few
| wars, and founded St. Petersburg, among other things.
| [deleted]
| ruggeri wrote:
| 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.
| int_19h wrote:
| 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.
| trident5000 wrote:
| 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.
| cafard wrote:
| 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.
| eth0up wrote:
| > Before that, it was common to be shaved by the barber.
|
| Or.. the one who shaves all those, and those only, who do not
| shave themselves
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_paradox
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| That seems plausible - being able to wear a gas mask with a
| tight seal was a matter of life and death in WW1. When a
| habit like that can save your life, I don't imagine you'd be
| quick to give it up after returning home.
| tenfourwookie wrote:
| 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!
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I prefer a beard because I'm lazy, but when I shaved, an
| electric shaver made the process quick and easy.
| simonh wrote:
| 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?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| There are a lot of easy things that we don't do everyday...
| We brush our teeth for health & hygiene. We, for the most
| part, trim/shave our beards for fashion. After all, under
| lockdown did you always get dressed up in the same way you
| did before?
|
| Now, if it cost you money to keep your beard, that would be a
| different situation and probably motivate you more.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| 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.
| wccrawford wrote:
| 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.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Beards become less itchy the more they grow. Shaving makes
| the hair sharp, and itchy. But if you let it grow out, trim
| the beard, and such, a beard becomes no more itchy than hair
| on your head. But there is a good 2 weeks of itchy.
| wccrawford wrote:
| A while after that it got itchy again, and I ended up
| having to use special shampoo and "beard butter" and such
| to stop it from itching. It ended up not worth the time,
| effort and money.
| anm89 wrote:
| 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.
| wurstman wrote:
| Thanks for this, it sounds interesting
| alex_young wrote:
| 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...
| divs1210 wrote:
| thanks for this! very interesting rabbit hole!
| [deleted]
| danielodievich wrote:
| 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!
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(page generated 2021-07-27 23:00 UTC)