Vegetarianism in Russia: The Tolstoy(an) Legacy

Abstract

The collapse of communist rule in Russia at the beginning of the 1990s revived a whole series of social, cultural, and ideological phenomena that had either laindormant or been almost entirely absent during the Soviet period, phenomena ranging from pornography and prostitution to religion and real estate. Vegetarianism, which had been demonized under Stalin as a pernicious and insidiously "antiscientific" doctrine promulgated by the ideologues of the exploitative classes in the capitalist West, experienced a revival that began during the glasnost' years; it has continued to remain popularin postcommunistRussia as well. The Vegetarian Society of the USSR, which was created in the late 1980s under Gorbachev, helped to bring together-and, more importantly, to bring out of the proverbial closet-Russian vegetarians of various hues, organizing health groups in different cities across the former Soviet Union.