be released from archives until 1905) and dismissed Fon-vizin. Pushkin later wrote that Catherine probably feared him. The playwright’s health declined after a seizure in 1785, and he died in 1792. See also: THEATER
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fonvizin, Denis Ivanovich, and Gleason, Walter J. (1985). The Political and Legal Writings of Denis Fonvizin. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis. Levitt, Marcus C. (1995). Early Modern Russian Writers: Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Detroit: Gale Research. Moser, Charles A. (1979). Denis Fonvizin. Boston: Twayne. Raeff, Marc, ed. (1966). Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology. New York: Harcourt, Brace amp; World.
Russian food is typically hearty in taste, with mustard, horseradish, and dill among the predominant condiments. The cuisine is distinguished by the many fermented and preserved foods necessitated by the short growing season of the Russian North. Foraged foods, especially mushrooms, are important to Russian diet and culture. The Russians excel in the preparation of a wide range of fresh and cultured dairy products; honey is the traditional sweetener.
Russian cuisine is known for its extensive repertoire of soups and pies. The national soup (shchi) is made from cabbage, either salted or fresh. Soup is traditionally served at the midday meal, accompanied by an assortment of small pies, croutons, or dumplings. The pies are filled with myriad combinations of meat, fish, or vegetables, and are prepared in all shapes and sizes. The Russian diet tends to be high in carbohydrates, with a vast array of breads, notably dark sour rye, and grains, especially buckwheat.
Many of Russia’s most typical dishes reflect the properties of the traditional Russian masonry stove, which blazes hot after firing and then gradually diminishes in the intensity of its heat. Breads and pies were traditionally baked when the oven was still very hot. Once the temperature began to fall, porridges could cook in the diminishing heat. As the oven’s heat continued to subside, the stove was ideal for the braised vegetables and slow-cooked dishes that represent the best of Russian cooking.
The Orthodox Church had a profound influence on the Russian diet, dividing the year into feast days and fast days. The latter accounted for approximately 180 days of the year. Most Russians took fasting seriously, strictly following the proscriptions against meat and dairy products.
From the earliest times the Russians enjoyed alcoholic beverages, especially mead, a fermented honey wine flavored with berries and herbs, and kvas, a mildly alcoholic beverage made from fermented bread or grain. Distilled spirits, in the form of vodka, appeared only during the fifteenth century, introduced from Poland and the Baltic region.
The reforms carried out by Peter I greatly affected Russian cuisine. The most significant development was the introduction of the Dutch range, which relied on a cooktop more than oven chambers and resulted in more labor-intensive cooking methods. The vocabulary introduced into Russian over the course of the eighteenth century reveals influences from the Dutch, German, English, and ultimately French cuisines. By the close of the eighteenth century, Russia’s most affluent families em512
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ployed French chefs. With so much foreign influence, Russian cuisine lost its simple national character. The eighteenth-century refinements broadened Russian cuisine, ushering in an era of extravagant dining among the wealthy.
The sophistication of the table was lost during the Soviet period, when much of the populace subsisted on a monotonous diet low in fresh fruits and vegetables. Shopping during the Soviet era was especially difficult, with long lines even for basic foodstuffs. Hospitality remained culturally important, however, and the Soviet-era kitchen table was the site of the most important social exchanges.
The collapse of the Soviet state brought numerous Western fast-food chains, such as McDonald’s, to Russia. With the appearance of self-service grocery stores, shopping was simplified, and food lines disappeared. However, food in post-Soviet Russia, while plentiful and widely available, was expensive during the early twenty-first century. See also: AGRICULTURE; CAVIAR; PETER I; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH; VODKA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Glants, Musya, and Toomre, Joyce, eds. (1997). Food in Russian History and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Goldstein, Darra. (1999). A Taste of Russia: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality, 2d ed. Montpelier, VT: Russian Life Books. Herlihy, Patricia. (2002). The Alcoholic Empire: Vodka and Politics in Late Imperial Russia. New York: Oxford University Press. Molokhovets, Elena. (1992). Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets’ A Gift to Young Housewives, tr. Joyce Toomre. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
The first stage in Russia’s involvement with international capital markets was associated with the great drive for industrialization that marked the final decades of the nineteenth century. The backwardness of the country’s largely rural economy implied substantial needs for imports, which in turn meant foreign borrowing. The epic railway construction projects in particular would not have been possible without such financing. With growing volumes of Russian debt floating abroad, the country became increasingly vulnerable to speculative attacks, which could have proven highly damaging. The skillful policies of finance ministers Ivan Vyshnegradsky and Sergei Witte averted such dangers. By imposing harsh taxes on the rural economy, they also managed to promote exports from that sector, which made for a healthy trade surplus. As a result of the latter, by the end of the century the currency qualified for conversion to the gold standard.
Russia thus entered the twentieth century with a stable currency and in good standing on foreign capital markets. The Bolsheviks put an end to that. By deciding to default on all foreign debt of Imperial Russia, Vladimir Lenin effectively deprived the Soviet Union of all further access to foreign credit. Since the economy remained backward, all subsequent ambitions of achieving industrialization thus would have to be undertaken with domestic resources, or with the goodwill of foreign governments offering loan guarantees.
An early illustration of problems resulting from the latter scenario was provided during World War II, when the Soviet Union received substantial military assistance from its western allies, shipped via the famed Murmansk convoys. Known as “Lend-Lease,” the program was not originally intended as a free gift, but during the subsequent Cold War the Soviet Union refused to make repayments. In 1972 the United States followed a previous British example in forgiving ninety percent of the debt. When Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, about $600 million of the remainder was still outstanding-and more had been added.
Toward the end of the Soviet era, much-needed modernization of the economy produced growing demands for imports of foreign technology, which in turn required foreign credits. Eager to have good relations with Mikhail Gorbachev, many Western governments gladly offered guarantees for such loans. By the end of 1991, with the Soviet Union in full collapse, those loans went into effective default. The total of all outstanding Soviet foreign debt came to almost $100 billion.
The first decade of Russia’s post-Soviet existence was heavily marked by problems surrounding the handling of that debt. While foreign creditor governments remained insistent that it be repaid, they were also willing to offer substantial new credits in support of Russia’s economic transition. The Russian government responded by evolving a
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strategy for debt management that rested on aggressively threatening default on old debt in order to obtain forgiveness, rescheduling, and fresh credits.
Much of the subsequent political wrangling would revolve around Russia’s increasingly controversial relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). An initial credit of $1 billion was granted in July 1992, when Russia became a member of the Fund. In 1993, a further $1.5 billion was paid out, under a special “Systemic Transformation Facility” (STF). As Moscow failed to live up even to the soft rules of the STF, the IMF withheld disbursement of an agreed second $1.5 billion tranche.
Following severe criticism for having failed to offer proper support, in April 1994 the Fund decided to release
