5 - Luxuries from the Periphery: The Global Dimensions of the Eighteenth-Century Russian Rhubarb Trade

Summary

According to Immanuel Wallerstein, Russia was for a long time a so-called ‘external area’ of the ‘World-System’, because it allegedly had no interest in importing European goods. Wallerstein did not even consider the country to be part of Eastern Europe, which (as he explained in more detail in the introduction to that book) should be categorized as a ‘periphery’. This idea of Russia as a ‘backward’ country, needing and eventually failing to ‘catch up’ to Western Europe, has long been a popular theme – especially in English and German historiography of the twentieth century. Soviet historians, who were dealing with the restrictions of a limited ideological framework, did not challenge this narrative either. Only in recent years have scholars started to analyze this image more critically and to put Russian economic strategies in the wider global context of the time. While it is true that Russian reliance on foreign goods was often small to non-existent, foreign trade and especially the levies on it were nevertheless an important source of income for the Russian state. It is therefore unsurprising that the Russian government had actively promoted foreign trade since the Middle Ages, using tools and strategies common at the time. The three most important ones were the aforementioned tax revenues, the establishment of merchants’ organizations, and the imposition of monopolies on certain (usually very valuable) trade goods. In the past historiography, these measures have been heavily criticized as prohibiting free trade and keeping the country in its ‘backward’ position. However, duties on trade were in no way a characteristic unique to Russia. In fact, they were a common mercantilist measure in many Western and Central European economies.

In this chapter, I will analyze the Russian rhubarb trade in the eighteenth century, to illustrate how the Russian government was able to become an important player in supplying Europe with a Chinese luxury product, by meticulously monitoring and supervising the trade of this plant. In exporting medicinal rhubarb to Western Europe, the often-criticized government measures turned out to be critical advantages. The chapter begins by outlining the fur trade as a prerequisite for the Russian rhubarb trade, as it laid the groundwork for the Russian expansion to Siberia and the establishment of relations with the Chinese government.