Reconstruction 6.1 (Winter 2006)
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The Everyday Life of Playing Cards, Ruralism, and the Case of Russia Peasantry / Anna Kushkova
Abstract: This chapter addresses the issue of card playing in the Russian village of the second half of the nineteenth century. The author challenges a widely spread stereotype that Russian peasants did not play in any other way that merely "for fun" or "for entertainment," but rather shows that this view is inconsistent with historical reality, which places card play at the center of daily social life. Social changes of village life after peasants' emancipation (1861) brought about systematic contacts of rural and urban population in many provinces of the country. As a result, a number of city habits and practices were borrowed by the peasant population, gambling being only one of them. Kushkova looks at various aspects of card playing in the post-emancipation Russian village, first of all at its economic side (its role for the peasant budget, means of acquiring "extra" money, etc.). Card playing is also shown to be an "elite" practice that required certain "financial qualification," which were potentially available to all (like the modern lottery system in the United States). The role of card play is examined in light of two central themes: 1) the gradual expansion of card play from the context of a holiday to the sphere of everyday life, and 2) institutionalization of the practice of card playing in some local traditions, together with the social implications of this process. Particular attention is paid to the attitude of various societal groups in the village towards card play, with the emphasis upon the reaction of the village authorities. By drawing upon ethnographic data, Kushkova is able to show the actual lived experience of game players, refuting the limited understanding of media-manipulation as further by conservative thinkers; as such, games are shown as the social facilitator they are and have been since their introduction.
Cards will I play / Ready to lose /
Just to test / Luck and fortune again
"Stroke fire Ilmarinen" 2000, 321
<1> It is well known that the sphere of everyday life often remains "invisible" both for those who live in it and for those who observe it from the outside. The former get used to the recurrent flow of mundane circumstances to the point where they become unable to see anything that is "worth paying attention to" in them. The latter, external observers, who by their very position have more possibility to discern the unique nature of other people's quotidian experience, more often look at what the culture itself presents to them as "important" or "problematic." Thus the "disappearance" of everyday life for a researcher may be connected with its "transparency" within the culture itself [1]. This is even more apparent if we study a culture that is predominantly oral and chronologically remote from us, and if the concept of "everyday life" is absent in the methodological apparatus of its contemporary scholarship.
<2> What, nevertheless, makes it possible for us to address the issue of card playing in the Russian village of the second half of the eighteenth century where the limitations mentioned above are in place? It seems that this possibility emerges as a result of changes that at that time took place within the everyday life of the village itself. The very fact that card playing and other similar "habitual" practices started to "appear" in ethnographic descriptions suggests that these changes were so considerable that even contemporaries could not fail to notice it any more.
<3> Sometimes cultural reaction to the sudden growth of card playing was even too emotional, and consequently not critical enough to account for the specificity of this practice. An example of this is a description of card playing in a popular church magazine [2]: " The flame for this passion has presently reached extraordinary dimensions. People play in the cities, people play in the villages, men play and women play, the secular and the spiritual play; the old men play and the young men play; even babies who have just learned to babble and can't yet tell the left from the right can well tell a king from a knave, spades from hearts, and are more willing to occupy themselves with cards then with other plays typical of their age" ("About Card Play" 1898, 540).
<4> Not denying a certain value of such descriptions, I nevertheless consider them a starting point of my research, the aim of which is to present a comprehensive description of various aspects of peasant card playing, the sociology and "anatomy" of this practice in the second half of the nineteenth century Russian village. More particularly I will address the following questions: how can one explain the explosion of interest in cards among the peasants in this period of time and whether it is connected with the way by which cards came to the village; what was the specificity of the "new" card playing and what place did it occupy in the structure of peasants' occupations; the "economic" component of the game and its influence upon the course of village life, and, finally, the attitude to cards among different social groups in the village. I will show that the idea that card play in the Russian villages "was not a play of hazard" ("Play and Passion" 1999, 198) is not consistent with historical reality and the " opposition of rural "card idyll" to urban [card] passion" (Lotman 1994, 160) requires considerable corrections.
<5> This work is the first approach to the phenomenon of peasant card playing; unfortunately, I will not be able to provide any statistics simply because statistical studies of the phenomenon under discussion does not exist. Most of my examples were gleaned from various ethnographic descriptions pertaining to Russian central and southern provinces; presentation of this largely unique material may be regarded as an aim in itself.
<6> Speaking about cards in the village, one should from the very beginning make two reservations: 1) cards as such were known in the village before the second half of the XIXth c.; divination was one particular sphere where they were used among a large number of other mantic objects (see Wigzell 1998, 246); 2) peasants had to know card playing as well because it was a constitutive element of the estate owners' life (see: Lotman 1994, 161). Some peasants who traveled to seasonal fairs could observe card play in towns. City players who regularly transgressed the law against "hazard games" would be banished to villages, according to the administrative practice of the time; card playing could subsequently disseminate in the rural area [3].
<7> However, none of these ways by which card playing could come to peasants will be in the focus of this study. These ways could not be systematic and the practice of playing would be primarily transmitted to local officials and petty bourgeoisie and only then, probably, to peasants. For me the most important channel would be the one created by immediate and regular contacts of village and urban population, the possibility of which emerged in the post-emancipation period of Russian history.
<8> Thus I will primarily look at the seasonal migrations of rural workers to the city area -- the practice that grew precipitously at the time of early modernization in the country. I am certainly not trying to offer a monocausal explanation of how the practice of card playing was transmitted to the village, since labor migration was not a part of rural economy in all Russian provinces. Yet, my choice is determined by the following considerations: 1) many authors of the texts used in this study regarded seasonal migrations as the major reason why card game "conquered" the village, and 2) the effect created by labor migration can be seen as the most representative case of the "meeting" of rural and urban cultures.
<9> For example: "How wonderfully our men [4] spend their free time! ...In the evening they gather in a house of some village guy who lived in Moscow and infected [them] with "elegant" way of communication...Here they pursue card playing for entire nights" (Ogoniok 1897, 3); "Games of chance are brought to Arapovka about 10 years ago by those local young men who went to earn money in seaside towns...and since that time all youth got very much attached to cards" (Ivanov 1907, 195) (see also: AREM 7/732, 8a etc.). What is important in examples like this is not only the conviction about how card playing came to the village, but the implied attitude to outmigration as that which makes this transmission possible.
<10> The most common notion about peasant seasonal labor migration is that it brings about deterioration of village morals: those who return are said to be "the main founders of village taverns," they bring "discord and mental ferment to village youth" (Vesin 1887, 184), they are "most disrespectful" of village traditions ("Edelevo…" 1891, 4), they forget real peasant work (Semenov 1915, 12-13). In certain social strata outmigration could be seen even as "a deed of the Antichrist", a sign of the end of the world to come (Zlatovratsky 1897, 137). Yet if there had been no variation within this attitude, it would be virtually impossible to explain why a number of city habits, such as the way of dressing and speaking, new types of food, urban recreational activities, etc. would be so readily accepted in the village of that time. It seems that there was another way of looking at the very possibility of leaving one's village for a city which for this or that reason, most probably ideological, was not very common in the contemporary discourse on peasants. At least a part of rural population regarded outmigration as an occupation of prestige allowing the worker to earn "big bucks" somewhere in a big city and to raise one's social position back in the village (Zhbankov 1891, 24-25, 75).
<11> The issue of attitudes towards outmigration is addressed not only to explain why certain urban practices, including card playing, were likely to be transplanted to the rural ground, but also -- and most importantly -- because the "philosophy" of outmigration seems to be very similar to that of card games. The perspective of quick enrichment, the temptation to "test" oneself, "one's luck and fortune" in the new unfamiliar circumstances, of asserting oneself through financial success -- all this reveals a perception of life as a play of circumstances in which somebody may be "lucky", may "snatch" a large "fish", may suddenly change his or her status. This "philosophy of chance" was a new paradigm that emerged in the peasant mentality especially after the peasant emancipation of 1861, when the new possibility of free enterprise brought about deep changes in the whole structure of rural social life [5].
<12> From this perspective it seems only natural that card playing, games of hazard or chance, become so popular among Russian peasants. This will also explain why the inner structure of village card play itself so strongly reflected the component of "prestige" and personal valor.
<13> Card games were known to peasants before the time of emancipation. Some of the "old games" were tied to calendar events: in spring, between Easter and All Saints' Day "youth and small children played dice, ball, cards, and young girls sang songs, rolled eggs" [6] (Arkhangelsky 1854, 34), for winter holidays "young people would.. ride on sledges...play cards...ask each other riddles" (Tu-Es 1910, 3) etc. The nature of practices associated with cards here allow to say that this was playing for entertainment, for fun, for having good time. It was on the basis of this "innocent" playing that the stereotype of "village card idyll" was created and sustained ("Play and Passion..." 1999, 198), making it difficult to see "serious" village play [7].
<14> What makes the practice of card play "visible", apart from the general changes in the sphere of everyday life as such, is the coming of the "other" play, new games, accompanied by a host of social consequences: "this passion ravages on a daily basis...players bet things more and more valuable for them" (Potanin 1899, 41); men
play for the whole night. They play vehemently [8], not for life, but for death [9]. In the course of playing a lot of vodka is being consumed. How can one not drink? Wine is a constant companion of cards. [Players] bet their last half kopeck coins, they cheat, they replace cards. Often it comes to scuffle (Tu-Es 1910, 4).
<15> The "associative field" of this card play is strikingly different: here peasants lose all the money they have, drink hard liquor, fight with each other, play dishonestly, etc. More than that, the importance of these "accompanying practices" is usually much higher than that of "songs, riddles and balls" in the first case. Often these socially undesirable or even criminal activities become the major target of those who write about cards, and not the playing itself [10].
<16> In the XIXth c. vocabulary there existed a distinction between "games of chance/hazard" and "commercial" games. In the first "the result...exclusively or to a large extent depend[ed] on chance, rather then the skill and competence of players" (Brokhaus, Efron 1890/I, 203). By contrast, the determining factors of the latter were calculation and strategy. In Russian history, the general tendency was to prohibit the games of chance and to allow commercial games, although, according to many sources, the distinction between them was not clear and some games would "drift" from one category to another (see Brokhaus, Efron 1895/XVIA, 631; Zotov 1886, 18). Since only games of chance contained the element of enrichment ("the stake is such that players...may not be indifferent to its loss or winning", Brokhaus, Efron 1890/I, 203), in the cities "playing for entertainment" and commercial games were regarded as the same thing.
<17> It seems that in the village one can hardly speak of "commercial" games if these are defined as the games of calculation. As follows from the majority of sources, the most popular game among the peasants was called "three sheets"; the aim of this game was to collect three cards of the same suit by passing the unnecessary cards to partners; the one who did this first was the winner (e.g. Ogoniok 1897, 3; AREM 7/11, 4b; AREM 7/295, 21; AREM 7/299, 3b; AREM 7/803, 19; AREM 7/1445, 35). This game may hardly be seen as an "intellectual duel" (Lotman 1994, 140) requiring, among other things, the ability to count (quickly) -- not one of the most typical peasant skills. I came across only one extended description of a game which may be seen as more or less sophisticated -- it is called "21" and requires that players count how many points they need towards this sum, how much to spend for "buying" cards from the bank, when it is most profitable to "break the bank", etc. (AREM 7/732, 8a-8b); in the United States this game is usually referred to as "Blackjack." Yet this is an exceptional example that only supports the idea that peasant card games largely fall into two categories: "games of chance/hazard" and "games for entertainment". The latter of these two may not, as was the case in cities, be equaled to "commercial" games as primarily the games of calculation, although neither of them were theoretically played for profit. Thus the typology of peasant card playing is different from that in the city [11].
<18> The possibility of "sudden enrichment" was one of the determining factors of the "new" card play in the village, which helps to begin this discussion with the economic side of these games. The motive of gain is indeed frequent in the descriptions; the incentive for play often came from the attraction "to earn, without much work, a couple of rubles" (Ogoniok 1897, 3). The following example gives an idea of what proportion the money gained could have in a peasant's budget: "a poor man from the village of Sokol'niki won 67 rubles in two evenings, bought a house for this money, oats for seeds, and hired a neighbor to work on his land" (AREM 7/803, 18a-18b). This example is said to be an "exceptional" one, for the peasant "stopped with that and never plays more"; in the absolute majority of descriptions the players are shown to be caught in the process of putting more and more money or material objects at stake, unable and unwilling to cease playing. This explains why the motive of gain is often substituted by the reciprocal motive of "gambling the last shirt away", of loosing everything one has: "One peasant in one evening lost all the clothes he had on, a samovar [12], a cow [and] two sheep" (AREM 7/803, 18 a); "one card lover...sold his barn, and when this proved to be insufficient, gambled away his only horse" (AREM 7/1277, 110); "in the village of Melovo...peasants often lose at cards their cattle,...land (for seeding), pastures (for mowing)" (AREM 7/908, 32), and so on.
<19> Emotional engagement in play must have been really high, for peasants, as a rule, tended to be "very cautious" when parting with their goods (AREM 7/295, 21). A characteristic motive from "noble" culture of "squandering incredible sums of money" may be seen in the peasant play as well, only in a particular form.
<20> The fact that peasants often played for material objects rather than for money is worth paying attention to. Indeed, in many cases poorer peasants had to play for money surrogates such as matches or sunflower seeds (Ivanov 1907, 196), pretzels (AREM 7/908, 32) or nuts (Potanin 1899, 42). The most obvious explanation is that peasants simply did not have any "free money" in their budget to spend for such "extra" activity as card playing [13]. This fact, however, does not reduce this playing to the level of "mere entertainment", but only reflects the specificity of peasant budgets and their general level of life [14].
<21> In many cases peasants who could not afford playing began stealing when the players run out of money to bet with, which is one of the regular "accompanying motives" in many of the texts. Particularly, it could be stealing from one's own household: "husbands pilfer eggs and pieces of cotton rolls from their wives. All this is being sold for a song to a tavern owner, a "benefactor" (Ogoniok 1897, 3); other players
steal money from home, and because women sew money into clothes...and during the night put this clothes under the head, men come home at midnight, pull out [these things] from under the head...cast the piece of clothes away and go the "club" to play. Some women keep money in the cellar, in a bottle that they bury in the ground and put a barrel on the top; men...go from the club to the cellar to take the money, but this way is not always successful if women happen to take money from the bottle and hide it in the potato pile (AREM 7/1148, 2).
<22> Card playing could be pursued at the expense of the player's family, but the family could develop counter strategies of resistance. The need for family survival would be especially pressing in cases when the player was the head of the family, the one who customarily was "the master of the purse strings" [15]. Yet in other situations, especially if it was a son who played and needed additional money, there could exist a "conspiracy" between him and other family members, which, if discovered, would invariably lead to family quarrels: "the third type of quarrel is between a husband and a wife. Quarrels of this type may start...because of the children. For example, the son plays cards; his mother panders to him, gives him money behind the father's back; the father finds out and, of course, quarrels, and sometimes even fighting, starts between the parents" (AREM 7/551, 28).
<23> Expenses inevitably incurred by card playing could be a limiting factor that excluded many from its possible participants. At times only a small number of villagers proved to be "financially qualified" for the play, while the others had to play the role of observers: "People, i.e. the crowd, don't play games of hazard. Playing is practiced...only among rich peasants. In our districts the following people play: the district elder, the court clerk, peasant Nikitin,...doctor and the head of the police office" (AREM 7/11, 4b); "during holidays almost in all villages where rich peasants live, especially those who gain their living from wood selling, game of hazard is going on, attracting those who have money in their pockets" (AREM 7/732, 8b-9a). Card playing becomes an elite practice that could involve people of non-peasant estates, including those of relatively high social position. This should be regarded already as an advanced stage in the development of card playing that would have most probably started with young people (both those who worked in the cities and those with whom they had closest contact upon return, e.g. Tu-Es 1910, 4; AREM 7/299, 3b; "Correspondence..." 1897, 3), and only then involve other, more respected members of the peasant community. This had a direct impact upon the official policy towards card playing in the village.
<24> The temporal aspect of card playing is also very important in the context of rural life. As was mentioned above, for a long time it was regarded as an element of a village holiday: "On the Shrovetide and Christmas-tide, as well as during Ester time, peasants gather...to play cards" [16] (AREM 7/908, 31); "after the Sunday service.. during holidays" (AREM 7/732, 9a) etc. However, a large number of ethnographical accounts provide evidence that the connection of card playing and holidays was considerably weakened, and playing cards quickly started to conquer everyday life of the village: "The infection [i.e. card playing] penetrated even further...cards are played not only on holidays, but also on week-days" (AREM 7/732, 9a). One of the correspondents of prince Tenishev ethnographic bureau, a village teacher, offered a typology of rural societies based on how peasants spend their free time. One type is characterized by the fact that "peasants...spend not only each free day, but each free hour at play", and cards become the center of village life in the whole peasant society: "when peasants of such villages gather for an assembly, the single topic of their conversation is card play. They talk about who won or lost and how much, who made a successful move and won for nothing" (AREM 7/803, 14). Thus card playing leaves the context of a holiday and becomes an attribute of free time in general. Another proof of this idea is a special greeting formula addressed to those who are playing cards: "Play to the cards!" ("Riddles, greetings..." 1903, 478) [17].
<25> Yet even the shift from the holiday to everyday context was not the end in the development of the card practice in the village. A number of our examples suggest that at times cards would encroach even upon the productive sphere of peasant life. Peasants "play the whole Sunday night, and sometimes catch up Monday as well...[Or] they would go to the smithy to forge nails and take cards with them. During the lunch time they would sit down to play a couple of rounds, and will forget about the furnace. Women wait and wait." (AREM 7/803, 18a); "our men took so much to cards that they forget all work and spend days and nights in tea-houses and clubs" (AREM 7/1148, 3). There are also examples of how those who lost money in a game would desert their homes for fear of punishment, and their families would put a lot of time and effort in their search and possibly investing into their medical treatment afterwards (AREM 7/1148, 2-3). Thus the influence of card play upon the economy of peasant household could have been even stronger than its immediate financial consequences (losses and gains), or even stealing from home [18].
<26> Often players regarded church services as an additional resource of time for play -- "ungodly" behavior which provoked righteous anger not only of priests, but of pious parishioners as well: "Reproaches on the part of common peasants in respect to card playing, especially if it takes place during church services...are rather strong" (AREM 7/11, 5a). A number of texts prove that these concerns were not unjustified:
...two men from Verkhovje went one Sunday day to the morning service. On the way they sat down to smoke. One of them pulled out several cards together with the tobacco-pouch. "Do you have cards on you?" asked his companion. "I've taken them along, in case they come in handy". "Let's exchange a game" [19] suggested his companion. He agreed. The third person was passing by, and he also joined them, and then the fourth one. So they sit and play. People return from the church service, and they keep on playing. So they played till the evening, without food or drink (AREM 7/803, 18a).
<27> The eves of big church holidays, which were often specifically marked in the popular religious tradition, could also be used "not to the purpose" (e.g. AREM 7/732, 9a; AREM 7/1824, 27 etc.) [20].
<28> In this contexts the clergy itself was not exempt from the card passion: some of them would "devote the time free from pastoral duties to cards" and as a consequence would neither read spiritual literature nor discuss issues of ministry with other priests ("Three pests..." 1895, 55).
<29> Apart from the "extensive" development of card practice (holidays → everyday life → sphere of production → sphere of the of church), it was also undergoing inner structuraliztion, gradually turning into a institutionalized practice.
Peasants of the Talyzino village, as soon as they finish household works in the fall, start playing cards, for which they gather in a house called club, pay 4 kopecks each for light, and 4 kopecks for cards, and apart from this 2 kopecks to the head of the house for disturbance, for he does not go to sleep for the whole night, letting some people into the house and others outside, or accompanying some to the yard for fear that they would steal something, or drop fire from the pipe and set [the house] on fire: his wife and children he sends somewhere to the neighbors for the night, whereby he says to them so: "I alone will suffer, for one can choke on smoke here". The men, having come in the evening, first of all give the head of house money for light and for cards, then take off their coats, and sit 8 people to each table; altogether there are four tables in the house...The play starts...Whoever wins a ruble, is obliged to buy vodka for everybody for 20 kopecks...There are three clubs in the village. Each club holder receives pure profit of 30 rubles during winter (AREM 7/1148, 1-3).
Thus both temporal and spatial aspects of the card play were regulated, all participants (including family members of the club holder) were subject to its inner routine, they had certain financial obligations, etc. Similar, although not so detailed, examples may be seen in other texts as well (e.g. Ogoniok 1897, 3; AREM 7/11, 4b).
<30> It seems that village card players as a group, at least in some local traditions, may be defined by the term "focused gathering", or "a set of persons engrossed in a common flow of activity and relating to one another in terms of that flow. Such gatherings meet and disperse; the participants in them fluctuate; the activity that focuses them is discrete -- a particulate process that reoccurs rather than a continuous one that endures. They take their form from the situation that evokes them, the floor on which they are placed...but it is a form, and an articulate one, nonetheless" (Geertz 1973, 424, with reference to E.Goffman, Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis, 1961. Pp. 9-10).
<31> In the course of inner structuralizing of the play a number of habitual patterns and even rites were developing. One of the most representative from the point of view of the nature of the play, and also the one more frequently described, was the practice of punishing the losers and debtors: "if somebody...loses everything… [other players], in exchange for the consent to wait for this debt, make him dance till he is dead tired, or rather till he falls down, and everybody shakes with laughter, and then they allow him to go home and say: "now you'll sleep tight"" (AREM 7/1148, 1a). Or: [when only one person remains who failed to collect three cards of the same suit, somebody]
takes the pack of cards, shuffles them and starts to run his fingers by the edge of the pack so that cards can be seen only by half. [The loser] looks and notes which card is closer to the bottom...and says for example: "queen of spades, from the bottom!". Then everybody takes him by the hair, the one who holds the pack opens the first card from the place pointed and says: "King!" Then those who hold him [i.e. the loser] by the hair start to pull at it saying as they do so: "king is going along the road!" Then the one who holds the pack raises the next card and says: "knave!" -- Everybody again tears his [the loser's] hair and chants: "knave was dragging [one] by the ears!" [21]. For the ace there is the following song: "ace was roaming in the forest, // ace was catching two siskins // a wedge slid down and fell upon the head!". There are no rhymes for the rest of the cards, they just tear his hair till they get to the card pointed (AREM 7/910, 6) [22].
<32> Various shaming or humiliating acts practiced upon losers may be generally called a universal feature of card games of hazard, although sometimes they may be much less innocent than the ones described here [23].
<33> Contrary to my expectations, the motive of sharp practice, in connection to which one would expect other types of punishment, is virtually non-existent in the texts available. However, bearing in mind that peasants used cards over and over again [24], and even "soaked [them] in oil so that they would be slippery and would not get worn out fast" (AREM 7/1345, 39), cheating was highly probable. It may be that the authors who were not peasants themselves were not "initiated" into the card play to the point of knowing about the ways of cheating, and peasant correspondents did not want to divulge "professional secrets".
<34> "Refrains" and other cliché phrases used at various points of the game are but one element of the language of card playing, of the players' "professional argot" that had a tendency to penetrate into other spheres language use besides the sphere of playing. "In their [i.e. players] everyday language there are many terms taken from the card play. A father, instead of calling his son a naughty boy, says to him: "what a khljust [25] you are!" One guy tells another one about the fighting: he hit me, and I "reconciled, and with ours" (Russ.: pomiril da s nashim), i.e. responded to his stroke and added more. If somebody in the family happened to get a better piece of pie, the master of the house says that this person got a trump"" (AREM 7/803, 18b) etc [26]. Emergence of this specific lexicon should be seen as another proof that in certain local traditions card play turned into a conspicuous and "articulated" practice, the effects of which could be perceived not only by its players.
<35> In particular, the language of cards was an important factor of childhood socialization in those areas where card play was flourishing. A number of sources contain evidence that here peasants took to cards "early in their life", and that children developed imitative practices of playing, where for the lack of money they used buttons (10 of them cost 1 kopeck). This, however, did not make their play less earnest and "ardent" (Ogoniok 1897, 3). "Starting with the age of 15" boys would start to accompany adult males to their "real" game (AREM 7/1148, 3).
<36> Linguistic and behavioral conventions discussed above confirm that for a number of peasant communities of the second half of the XIX c. card playing became an institutionalized practice, the execution of which was governed by specific customary rules.
<37> Some words about communal sensibilities towards card play across various social groups in the village should also be said. Several major factors were important in this respect. To begin with, the popular religious attitudes were very pronounced and provided for the association of cards and sin: "cards were invented by Jews and Judas betrayed Christ because he liked to play cards" (according to this legend Judas was passing by the house where Jews were playing cards, and being asked by them why he is peeping into the window, answered that he himself liked to play. They rejoiced at this response, for they decided that if he liked cards, "he must love money as well". They offered him 30 silver coins and he "agreed to betray his Teacher, for he had gambled away all money he had and hoped to retrieve it with these 30 silver coins" [27] (reported by the peasant woman Olga Dotsenko) (Ivanov 1907, 195-196). Popular Orthodox consciousness associated cards with a peculiar type of punishment in the other world: "whoever played cards, the devils will drive needles in his palms" (Vinogradov 1923, 57). The play itself could be considered within the eschatological paradigm as something that brings about the end of the world (cf. the words of a village "spiritual fool" that she addressed to card players: "You gamble Christ away in cards! That is why corn is not born...!", Faresov 1906, 52). The local practice of playing in village bathhouses at night (i.e. in a ritually impure place, at a ritually dangerous time) must have added to the notion of sinfulness of cards (Ibid., 48) [28].
<38> From the purely social perspective, attitude to cards was polarized particularly along gender lines. Card playing was almost exclusively a male occupation [29]; only one of our texts mentions that if a girl were to lose a game, other players would not pull her hair as was done with men, but "struck [her] by a card on the nose" (AREM 7/910, 6) [30]. Moreover, playing was often performed at the expense of female population (see above about home stealing, negligence of household duties, drinking, etc.); sometimes players would gamble away their wives' clothes (Zakharova 1916, 36) [31]. Small wonder that village women "hated [card] clubs with the whole of their soul" (AREM 7/1148, 3) and sometimes even considered cards to be "worse than wine" (Zakharova 1916, 36). Reputation as a "card player" might have lowered a young man's value on the matrimonial market [32].
<40> Whereas the attitude of peasant women towards card playing was rather consistent, the reaction of village officials could vary rather considerably. Games of hazard were legally punishable, and to execute this law was an immediate responsibility of local authorities. Yet ethnographic accounts show that card playing in the village successfully existed and had a tendency towards expansion. How can this be explained?
<41> First of all, in those cases when card players felt any danger "from above", they would come up with methods of self-defense:
not to be caught in the act of playing by a police officer or somebody from village authorities...guards would be placed at the entrance to the house and even at the ends of the street. Watchful guards are ready to run from all sides and to warn their comrades about the impending danger as soon as it appears (Ogoniok 1897, 3).
Thus card playing could develop "affiliate practices" that secured its very existence. This also implied a high level of intra-group solidarity among the players themselves [33].
<42> Secondly, village officials, particularly the village elder who often was one of the peasants himself, could turn a blind eye on the play for fear of revenge on the part of the players. For instance, in one case the village elder
not having enough courage to put players behind the bars...asked the land officer to perform the arrests. The arrested consistently tried to obtain information from the court clerk and the major as to who gave them away, whom shall they pray God for, whom shall they thank. And one can be sure that they will revenge when they find out (AREM 7/803, 18 b).
In those villages where there was no "club," youth could play in other people's bath houses; the owners did not dare to lock their property being afraid that "the boys will burn them" (Faresov 1906, 48). This is reminiscent of the attitude with which villagers could regard a local thief if he was successful and influential: not only would they prefer not to "quarrel" with him personally, they would defend him from the authorities. And the thief, in his turn, would not particularly try to conceal his "business" (Kushkova 2001). Such examples show the configuration of the real, i.e. informal power in the village, the power that made it possible for such forbidden or socially dangerous practices as stealing or card playing to exist.
<43> Thirdly, card playing was flourishing where representatives of village officials were themselves players, and where they could even hold a monopoly of play. "One doesn't hear about the persecution of card games, for who will persecute if the authorities themselves stand at the head of it" (AREM 7/11, 4b-5a); [the wives of the players would have reported about the card clubs] but "there is no way to report, for these clubs are being visited by all district court clerks and the major"; "two other clubs are kept by the major's close relatives" (AREM 7/1148, 3-4). It is obvious that for each authority there is a higher authority, but then the same mechanism of warning could again be in place: "the police officer hasn't yet arrived, but they [major's relatives who keep the card club] are already informed, and [in this club] there is no play; or a guard is put...not far from the district office building, and he should whistle and give a sign...and the play in the club stops" (Ibid., 4). Thus by the ability to defend itself through different ways the practice of card playing again exhibited its character as an institution. Involvement of village officials strengthened its "elite" character and explained connivance, if not open support, with which card playing was treated.
<44> This paper presents a brief analysis of the most important aspects of card playing in the Russian village of the second half of the XIX c. One of my major tasks was to present original ethnographic texts dedicated to this practice, thus attempting to break certain stereotypes in respect to rural recreational sphere of life. It was crucial for me to inscribe the development of the phenomenon under discussion into historical periodization of social life that suffered profound changes after the reform of peasant emancipation of 1861.
Works Cited
About card play 1898: About card play. // Priest's Interlocutor. No. 36, 1898. Saturday, September 5. Pp. 540-542.
Arkhangelsky 1854: A. Arkhangelsky. Village Dashvino, Yaroslavl' region, Poshekhonje district. // Collected Articles on Ethnography, Emperor's Russian Geographic Society. Issue II. St.Petersburg, 1854.
Bourdieu 1972: P.Bourdieu. Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction. // Family and Society. Selections from the Annales. Economies, Sociétiés, Civilisations. Edited by Robert Forster and Orest Ranum. Translated by Elborg Forster and Patricia M.Ranum. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London, 1976. Pp. 117-144.
Brokhaus, Efron 1890/I: F.A.Brokhaus (Leipzig), I.A.Efron (St.Petersburg). Encyclopedic Dictionary. Vol. I. St.Petersburg, 1890.
Brokhaus, Efron 1895/XVIA: F.A.Brokhaus (Leipzig), I.A.Efron (St.Petersburg). Encyclopedic Dictionary. Vol. XVIA. St.Petersburg, 1895.
Correspondence...1897: Correspondence from "Kaluga Herald". // Kaluga Herald 1897, No. 7. Thursday, May 8. P. 3.
Edelevo...1891: Russian-mordva-tatar parish of Edelevo, Sergachsky district. // Nizhegorodsky Province Gazette, 1891, No. 35. Wednesday, August 28. Pp. 3-4.
Efimenko 1877: Materials for ethnography of the Russian population of Arkhangelsk province, collected by P.S.Efimenko. // Works of Ethnographic Department, Society of Connoisseurs of Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography. Book V. Moscow, 1877. Pp. 160-196.
Engelgardt 1999: A.N.Engelgardt. From the village. 12 letters 1872-1887. St.Petersburg, "Nauka" publishers, 1999.
Faresov 1906: A.I.Faresov. Peasants and authorities. St.Petersburg, 1906.
Fontaine and Schlumbohm 2000: L.Fontaine, J.Schlumbohm. "Household Strategies for Survival: An Introduction", in: iid (eds.), Household Strategies for Survival, 1600-2000: Fission, Faction and Cooperation (International Review of Social History, Supplement 8). Cambridge: CUP 2000, pp. 1-17.
Geertz 1973: C.Geertz. ‘Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight', in Clifford Geertz, The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 412-453.
Golovin 1887: K.Golovin. Village commune in literature and in reality. St.Petersburg, 1887.
Ivanov 1890: P.Ivanov. People's stories about witches and vampires. // Collected articles of Kharkov Society for History and Philology. Vol. 2, issue II. Kharkov, 1890. Pp. 156-228.
Ivanov 1907: P.V.Ivanov. Life and beliefs of peasants in Kupiansky district, Kharkov province. // Collected articles of Kharkov Society for History and Philology, Vol. XVII. Kharkov, 1907.
Kharlamov 1904: M.A.Kharlamov. Superstitions, beliefs, signs and charms collected in the town of Maikop. Section 3. // Collected materials for the description of land and peoples of Caucasus. Issue 34. Tiflis, 1904. Pp. 1-124.
Kolobov 1916: I.V.Kolobov. Russian marriage in Olonets province, Pudozhsky district, Korbozersky district. // Living Antiquity, 1915. Petrograd, 1916, issue I-II. Pp. 21-90.
Kushkova 2001: A.Kushkova. Stealing in the Village: Social Context and Popular Juridical Tradition. (in print by the Center for Anthropological Research, Krasnodar, Russia)
Likhachev 1993: D.Likhachev. Card players of the criminals. // D. Likhachev. Early articles. Tver', 1993. Pp. 45-54.
Lotman 1994: Yu.Lotman. Card play. // Conversations on the Russian culture. Everyday life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII -- beginning of the XIX c.). St.Petersburg: "Art-St.Petersburg" publishers, 1994. Pp. 136-164.
Ogoniok 1897: Ogoniok. Games of hazard in the village. // Kaluga Herald, 1897, No. 95. Sunday, May 4. P. 3.
Parchevsky 1998: G.F.Parchevsky. Cards and card players. Panorama of life in the capital. St.Petersburg: "Pushkin Fund" publishers, 1998.
Play and Passion...1999: Play and passion in Russian art. Palace Editions. State Russian Museum. St.Petesburg, 1999.
Potanin 1899: Count Potanin. Ethnographic notes taken on the way from the town of Nikol'sk to the town of Tot'ma. // Living Antiquity, 1899, issue I. Pp. 23-60.
Riddles, greetings...1903: Riddles, greetings at meeting, jokes and witticisms of peasants from Vologda region.
Semenov 1915: S.T.Semenov. Twenty five years in the village. Petrograd, 1915.
Stroke fire Ilmarinen 2000: Stroke fire Ilmarinen. Anthology of Finnish folklore. / E.G.Rakhimova, compiler. Moscow: "Progress" publishers, 2000.
Three pests...1895: Three pests eating away our society's well-being. // Priest's Interlocutor. No. 3, 1895. Saturday, January 21. Pp. 53-55.
Tu-Es 1910: Tu-Es. Village pictures. Youth. // Village gazette, 1910. Friday, February 12. Pp. 3-4.
Vesin 1887: L.P.Vesin. Significance of outmigration trade in the life of Russian peasantry. // Delo, No. 5, May 1887. St.Petersburg, 1887. Pp. 161-205.
Vinogradov 1923: G.S.Vinogradov. Death and life beyond the grave in the beliefs of the Russian old residents of Siberia. Irkutsk, 1923.
Wigzell 1998: Faith Wigzell. Reading Russian Fortunes. Print Culture, Gender and Divination in Russia from 1765. Cambridge UP, 1998. 253 c.
Zakharova 1916: L. Zakharova. Influence of soberness upon the life of Kostroma village. // Kostroma village in the first period of the war-time. Works of the Kostroma Scholarly Society for the Study of Local Region. Issue V. Kostroma, 1916. Pp. 27-43.
Zhbankov 1891: D.N.Zhbankov. Woman's side. Statistical-ethnographic essay. Kostroma, 1891.
Zlatovratsky 1897: N.N.Zlatovratsky. Foundations. (Novel in 4 parts). Vol. 2. Essays on the peasant commune. Everyday life of the village. Moscow, 1897.
Zotov 1886: Vl. Zotov. History of card play. // Nov', 1886. No. 12. Pp. 357-370; No. 13. Pp. 1-19.
Archival materials
AREM: Archive of the Russian Ethnographical Museum. Fund 7 (prince Tenishev collection). Inventory No. 1. File 11 (Vladimir province, Vladimir district, 1899); file 295 (Vologda province, Nikol'sky district, 1899); file 299 (Vologda province, Nikol'sky district, 1899); file 551 (Kaluga province, Mesh'ovsky district, 1900); file 732 (Novgorod province, Tikhvin district, 1899); file 803 (Novgorod province, Cherepovetsky district, 1899); file 908 (Orel province, Bolkhovsky district, 1898); file 910 (Orel province, Bolkhovsky district, 1898); file 1148 (Orel province, Orel district, 1898); file 1277 (Orel province, correspondence from Orel Herald, 1882, No. 190); file 1345 (Penza province, Krasnoslobodsky district, 1898); file 1445 (Ryazan province, Zaraisky district, 1898); file 1824 (Yaroslavl' province, Romanovo-Borisoglebsky district, 1899).
Materials of field expeditions
Expedition to Novgorod region, Khvoininsky district (1997); Yaroslavl' region, Tutaevsky district (2000); Vologda region, Belozersky district (2001).
All expeditions were organized by the European University at St.Petersburg.
Notes
[1] This seems to be one of the intrinsic methodological difficulties of field research as such: "inasmuch as it is a discourse of familiarity, it will not mention those things that are ‘understood' because they are self-evident; inasmuch as it is a discourse for an outsider, it can only be intelligible if it excludes all references to particulars" (Bourdieu 1972, 118). [^]
[2] I will try, as much as possible, to preserve the stylistics and grammar of the original texts, even if they occasionally sound clumsy or even illiterate in translation. [^]
[3] For example, in violation of the law issued by Alexander I (1801), according to which these players and their accomplices had to be judged in the court, they were simply "sent away from St.Petersburg", which "helped to promote the game of chance in the province" (Zotov 1886, 16) (cf. the case of general Zorich, one of Catherine's favorites, who was sent away from the tsar's court and moved to his Ukrainian estate of Shklov, which "very soon...became an international center of card playing" (Parchevsky 1998, 14).
In a well-known article on cards written by Yu.M.Lotman one can see a list of card games "that applied for being dismissed in districts and villages", compiled as early as 1791 (see Lotman 1994, 138-139). Among others on the list, there is a game called "Three sheets" which later will be regarded as the most popular peasant card game in the second half of the XIX c. [^]
[4] In the Russian text the word muzhik is used here, which is the designation both of the gender and of the peasant estate. This word would be used in most of the examples cited in this paper. [^]
[5] It is at this time that the process of deep social differentiation in villages starts: some peasants manage to buy large plots of land that is now sold for cash. As a result they would often become important political actors in the village and start dictating their will in village assemblies. One of peasants' "most cherished dreams" becomes to "to feather one's nest", to become rich (Engelgardt 1999, 260, 274-275). [^]
[6] A traditional Easter entertainment: colored eggs were rolled on special boards with grooves; the one whose egg remained whole would win and get the broken eggs. [^]
[7] The opposition of "plays for entertainment" and "serious" "games of chance" was made on the level of official legislation already under Catherine II. Only the first ones, "because they do not entail breach of laws" were allowed (Brokhaus, Efron 1890/I, 204). The same distinction was made later by Alexander I: "a game that served for fun...amidst family or friends" was not to be considered a "transgression" (Zotov 1886, 17). The second type, games of chance, were always limited, prohibited and persecuted, and not only in Russia (Ibid., 1886, 1-19, 357-370). [^]
[8] This is a special verb in the Russian language, rezat'sia, used almost exclusively of card play, and roughly translating as "to play passionately, vehemently, furiously". [^]
[9] This expression that was translated literally is obviously a military metaphor -- a part of common card imagery. [^]
[10] In a more general way one can speak of a continuum of "socially-harmful" activities, the elements of which may be connected with each other both in practice and as parts of written or oral texts (e.g. quarrel -- feast fighting -- murder -- fraud -- stealing -- drinking -- playing games of change -- usage of obscene language, etc.). Descriptions of individual "vices" will almost invariably mention some others, by which the moralizing effect of the text would be strengthened. [^]
[11] One may say that the philosophy of games of hazard is very close to the philosophy of card divination in that the determining factor in both cases is that of chance, of accident. The "semantics of fortuitousness" seems to be even more complex in case of divinations, for it includes not only the "programming" element (what does it mean for a person that this particular card came out?), but also a "semiotic" component as such (what is the reason for a particular card to come out?).
Games of hazard may be also likened to the practice of drawing lots, which was widely used in peasant culture for various occasions; interestingly enough, in certain local traditions the plots of land received through this procedure were called "cards" (Golovin 1887, 44). [^]
[12] A metal urn used for heating water for making tea, considered to be a great value in a peasant household of the time. [^]
[13] By contrast, those who were engaged in seasonal labor migration to the urban area might have had additional resources to spend, and their "structure of consumption" was usually different from that of the permanent village dwellers in that it included precisely the "entertainment" component. This again ties with our original assumption about the crucial role of outmigration in the context of village card play. [^]
[14] In one rather curious example peasant youths are said to play "for villages in the vicinity", which evokes associations with how estate owners used to play for their villages together with the serfs living in them. Yet further on there comes an ironical reverse: the peasants played for the priority "to collect in these villages chunks of bread", i.e. to beg. This, however, should not produce an impression that they played for "insignificant things", because for them this type of activity obviously was of economical importance. The "relativity" of peasant stakes should always be borne in mind. [^]
[15] This pattern in itself may be a good study case within the frames of "methodological individualism" (see e.g. Fontaine and Schlumbohm 2000, 7). [^]
[16] Easter was regarded as a specific time when the "magic of luck" connected to cards could be performed and actualized: "To play cards successfully one has to go to the morning service on the Easter day, and when the priest says "Christ is risen!" for the first time, one has to quickly eat the knave of hearts; when the priest says [the greeting] for the second time, one has to eat the king of spades, and after the third time -- the queen of diamonds" (Kharlamov 1904, 19).
One of the multiple ways to recognize a witch was by her response to the priest's greeting "Christ is risen!": instead of the proper answer "Indeed He is risen!" she supposedly says: "I have a card in my pocket" (Ivanov 1890, 160-161). This last example is exceptional in that the "pure" semantics of a card is revealed, i.e. of any card in general, neither inscribed into a double hierarchy of figures and suits in the context of play, nor connected with any particular meaning in the practice of divination. [^]
[17] It is noteworthy that the majority of other greeting formulas are connected with various practices of production, e.g. "God help!" to those who are working, "God behind the goods!", to those who are selling goods, "Sea beneath the cow!", to a lady who is milking a cow. There were special ways of greeting people who were fishing, making bread, doing laundry, drinking tea and eating, or those who were met on the road ("Riddles, greetings..." 1903, 478). Thus good luck in playing cards was regarded as not less important than in any of the activities mentioned above. [^]
[18] The only restriction for playing is, nevertheless, connected with the sphere of village production: "it is not advised to play cards in spring and in summer, when corn is still in the field, for during the play (which is mostly conducted while the players are sitting right on the ground) cards are being "flattened", covered on the top, and so corn in the field will likewise be "flattened" to the ground" (Ivanov 1907, 196). This restriction is based on the direct transfer: the mode of action characteristic to card playing "models" the undesirable situation in the field, where the play might actually take place. Yet this restriction must have been local and did not have an imperative character. [^]
[19] Here again a typical expression is used (Russ. perekinutsia (v karty)) that implies a short game usually not planned in advance. [^]
[20] In one of my recent expeditions to the village an elderly woman complained that people nowadays play cards even during commemorative feasts after funerals, when it is proper to think about "spiritual" matters only; my informant expressed her indignation with a phrase: "How the soul allows [them] to play cards during commemoration?" (EU-belozersk-2001; 08.07. FR-18. AKE). ["EU" stands for "European University" archive, them comes the name of the district where the text was recorded, the year and the date of the recording. "FR" is "Field Record", followed by its number and the initials of the informant]. [^]
[21] This refrain, as well as the next one, is rhymed, and both sound somewhat strange to contemporary urban speakers of Russian. [^]
[22] Only a few of my texts contain information about cards themselves; from one most detailed description one learns that in the southern part of the country peasants were using the pack of 36 cards, the suits were spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds, with the usual hierarchy within each suit going from 6 to ace (Ivanov 1907, 195-196). [^]
[23] See examples of punishments practiced in such cases by the prisoners of the Solovki camp (Likhachev 1993, 51-53). [^]
[24] Peasants could buy used cards in the nearest towns where there were special people selling them (e.g. coachmen, Potanin 1899, 41), or else draw cards themselves (AREM 7/1345, 40). [^]
[25] Card term: 3 cards of the same suit. [^]
[26] See some other examples of the language of card play: Lotman 1994, 160-161; Likhachev 1993 passim etc. [^]
[27] What an inventive way of interlacing the biblical story with a characteristic motive from card playing! [^]
[28] The idea of the sinful nature of cards is strong even in the village of the present day. In the words of one elderly woman, although she herself used cards for divining dreams -- "It is said that the church people should not take cards in their hands" (EU-tutaev-2000; 12.08. FR-1. ММ). In another case, after a priest ordered an informant to burn her cards because "it was a sin both to play and to perform divination", she had a vision of three demons, disappointed and enraged at the fact that she stopped to perform their job: "Had I not burnt the cards...they would not have appeared to me" (EU-belozer-2001; 07.07. FR-18. EAP).
Ethnic associations of cards are nowadays expressed in the stereotypical representation of gypsies: those who dress like gypsies, e.g. during Christmas mumming, would invariably take a pack of cards (e.g. EU-khvoin-1997; 05.07. FR-40. GNK). [^]
[29] In general peasant culture described here reflected a typical gender differentiation as far as cards is concerned: "Cartomancy may be regarded as the female counterpart to card gaming, a predominantly male use of cards" (Wigzell 1998, 118). [^]
[30] Note that this example is about a "girl": married women were most probably not a part of card games. [^]
[31] In peasant folklore there are anecdotes in which a player gambles away his wife -- she must go and work in the winner's house for a year (Potanin 1899, 41). I doubt, though, that given the economic needs and constraints of peasants households, anything of this kind could be plausibly entertained. [^]
[32] Cf. in one wedding song a bride asks a match-maker whether the bridegroom "drinks wine or plays dice and cards" (Kolobov 1916, 67). [^]
[33] It is exactly the notion of this unity that lies as the basis of the following superstition: "If during the play cards fall down from the shuffler's hands, this means future quarrel" (Efimenko 1877, 174). In other words, as long as cards are together or are handled in a proper way, people are also bound with solidarity, when cards fall apart, discord is brought among people. [^]