Is it true that Peter I established the medal "For drunkenness"?

In many books and the media you can find a story about a very heavy medal, which the king allegedly awarded alcoholics as a punishment. We checked the reliability of this story.

In general terms, this unusual story sounds something like this. Peter I was dissatisfied with drunkards and decided to wean them from a bad habit in a very original way. The king allegedly ordered to cast a cast -iron medal weighing about 7 kg - she was put on a drunkard in a police station, and he was forced to wear this award from a week to a year. The medal for drunkenness in their texts is mentioned by the authors of many major Russian publications, including "RIA Novosti" "Kommersant", "Russian newspaper", "Arguments and Facts", Lenta.ru, magazines Maxim And "Around the world". The authors of several popular science books also tell about an unusual reward-for example, Andrei Galchuk in the collection “Amazing Russia. 500 facts about our country that will amaze you " and Valery Anishkin with Ekaterina Shmaneva in the book “The wealth and poverty of tsarist Russia. The palace life of the Russian kings and the life of the Russian people ". It is also mentioned by the writer Daniil Granin in the book "Fizures of memory". History did not pass by social networks - for example, large publics in VKontakte tell about it: "Science and facts" (4.8 million subscribers), "History of mankind" (4.4 million), "5 interesting facts" (4.3 million), HistoryPorn (1.4 million) and many others. The award is also dedicated to a small article In Wikipedia.

To begin with, when studying publications mentioning the medal “For Drunk”, distinctions in the appearance of the award are striking. On some of the objects we see the monogram of Peter I and the mention of 1714, there are no other elements on the other. In some cases, the ends of the star are extended more, in some less. In one of the photos, the inscription “For drunkenness” was made in an arc, in the other letters are even (though sometimes the letter “B” is above the rest). In one case, the letter “ѧ” (Yus is small) is on the site of the usual letter “I”, abolished Under Peter I, in others, something is more likely similar to modern “A”. The fastening form connecting the medal with the collar, the shape of the links of the chain and other details also differ.

Probably, a significant part of the images presented on the Internet - either photographs of modern souvenir products made "based on" historical award, or amateur copies. In authoritative sources, you can most often find one of two images.

Materials in large media about the medal “For Drunk” (often along with this photograph) began to appear only at the end of 2013, they were illustrated by this picture. Many of those publications were dedicated to the news - the medal was put up for auction. In the catalog of the auction house "Sign" Lot Described So: “Cast iron. The size of 36 x 33 cm. The medal was made for the anniversary of the St. Petersburg Society of Trustees on Popular Sobriety in 1914. She exactly repeated the medal "for drunkenness", established by Peter I in order to struggle against drunkenness. Its weight was 17 pounds (about 7 kg). The medal was hung on the neck in punishment for excessive drinking, so it was impossible to remove it on its own. It is considered the most heavy medal in history. ” Despite the fact that we are talking about a copy of the beginning of the 20th century, and not the original, a medal at an initial cost of 45,000 rubles. She left the hammer for 220,000 rubles. According to Kommersant, a buyer became The collector and founder of the Museum of the History of Body Punishment in Moscow Valery Pereverzev.

A significant number of earlier references are also associated with a variety of amateur museums. So, in 2011 (two years before the auction) medal Showed In the report of “Channel One” on the anniversary of the abolition of bodily punishment. Filming was carried out in the same museum of the history of bodily punishments, the same Valery Pereverzev gave the commentary, and in the frame they showed two different medals “for drunkenness” at once. In 2009, the same award Mentioned In the publication about the exhibition "Secrets of the Middle Ages" in Volzhsk, and in 2004-in story About the museum of Russian vodka that opened in St. Petersburg. In 2018, the Memorial Museum of the Demidov merchants in Tula introduced A copy of the award with which any visitor could be photographed.

Of the large museums, as far as we managed to find, the medal “For Drinking” mentions only the State Historical Museum (GIM) in Moscow. There is her I took a picture Art critic Sofya Bagdasarova. Gim often talks about this exhibit in social networks, while at different times he describes it differently. So, in 2016, the Gim account on Facebook Reported: this “collar with a cast -iron star with the inscription“ for drunkenness ”” weighing 4.1 kg was made in the first half of the 18th century, and “workers of the Demidov plants” were awarded to them. This description coincides with the one that Baghdasarova in 2008 provided a photo in Wikimedia Commons. Moreover, in 2018, also on Facebook museum did Another post in which the description of the medal acquired a “canonical” type: a reward weighing 6.8 kg introduced Peter I in 1714 in order to struggle against drunkenness, she was hung around the neck in a police station, and it was necessary to wear a medal for a week. The same version of Gim set out on tweet in 2019. At the same time, in the catalog on the official website of the museum to us failed Detect such an exhibit.

We turned to GIM with a request for a comment, the press service transferred our request to the metal department. The employees of this unit in response sent a description of the exhibit from the museum catalog: "A collar with a cast -iron eight -pointed star and the inscription" For drunkenness "." According to the keepers, the subject entered the collection in 1930 from the Military Historical Museum and was made in the second half of the 1710s from iron and cast iron, its weight-4.1 kg. Also, in the response of the GIM metal department, the Wikipedia article on the Medal “For Drunk” was completely quit, which sets out a common version about the decree of Peter I. Our interlocutors did not give any explanations about the exhibitment of the exhibit. Employees of the GMM did not answer clarifying questions, limiting themselves to the assertion that they did not engage in the publication of information about subjects on Facebook.

Earlier mention of an unusual reward can be found in several sources of the Soviet era. So, in 1988 about the medal "For Drunk" told In the literary and art journal "Baikal". In 1972, her mentioned in the collection "Agriculture of Kyrgyzstan", and a year earlier - in work "Soviet administrative legislation guarding public order." It should be noted that these texts were not prepared by professional historians, and we could not find confirmation in academic publications.

The most earlier mention of the medal as the award introduced by Peter I, which we were able to find, dates from the 1965 on February. Then in the magazine "Spark" in the heading "Funny Little things" appeared A small note signed by V. Kogan: “Recently, working on archival materials, I drew attention to an unusual medal. It turns out that under Peter I drunkards who went to prison, hung a cast -iron medal weighing 17 pounds (6.8 kg) around the neck with the inscription: "For drunkenness". " The text was accompanied by the image of the award - either a pattern or a photograph of not the best quality.

At the same time, in the pre -revolutionary texts available to us about the seven -kilogram award, nothing is reported, as well as in the academic research we learned. A decree or any other document on the establishment of a medal "For drunkenness" is absent as in "Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire", and in the collection "Legislative acts of Peter I"prepared at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. According to the researchers, the king, on the contrary, I encouraged The sale of alcohol - due to this, the treasury was replenished. At the same time, excessive drunkenness during service was punished much more cruelly than wearing a very heavy medal.

The origin of the unusual reward last year Studied Our colleague Alexei Boronenko. Candidate of historical sciences Andrei Zakharov, to whom he turned for a comment, said that “nowhere, in any historical sources about such a medal is said,” and expressed a hypothesis that “it could be a one -time joke that was then exaggerated.” In the exposition of the GIM, according to Boronenko, this exhibit is exhibited as a medal that workers were hung in the Demidov factories. The museum workers interviewed by our colleague reported that Peter I had nothing to do with this award. It was used “only in relation to drunk workers: they had to wear it within a week, the other workers had to laugh at them, and this should have been drunken by a not very attractive habit.”

Probably, the medal “For drunkenness” existed in Peter's time - in the authenticity of the subject itself, Employees of the GMM are confident. However, its existence was strictly local - a similar object was put on as a punishment at the Demidovs factories. In turn, the version that Peter I introduced a similar measure everywhere everywhere was first sounded only in the mid-1960s and is not confirmed by accessible historical sources and academic research. However, this did not prevent her from becoming popular, and the owners of numerous amateur museums - to expose the medals of Peter I, under the guise of genuine artifacts quite different from each other.

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Russian National Library. Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire
2. Arzamas. The law and order in Russia of the XVIII century (the course of Evgeny AnisAndmova)
3. I. Kurukin, E. Nikulin. "Sovereign Kabatsky business": Essays on drinking policy and traditions in Russia