On August 22, 2012 Russia joined the World Trade
Organization (WTO) as its 156th member. What does it mean? The WTO
is a club of countries that promise to liberalize trade with each other and
resolve their disputes by following legal rules. As with other clubs, to join
as a member means to agree to act in appropriate club-approved ways.
And what does the WTO have to do with Alexandr Pushkin? Pushkin’s
great novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (it
placed the author on par with Shakespeare and Homer, according to many)
described life in Russia in the early 19th century, including wonderful
little details about Russia’s foreign trade of that period.
In Chapter I of “Eugene Onegin” Pushkin describes the
dressing room of his protagonist, a St. Petersburg dandy, a description that is
well worth being quoted today (in excellent James E. Fallen translation):
“Shall I
abandon every scruple
And picture
truly with my pen
The room
where fashion’s model pupil
Is dressed,
undressed and dressed again?
Whatever
clever London offers
To those
with lavish whims and coffers,
And ships
to us by Baltic seas
In trade
for tallow and for trees;
Whatever
Paris, seeking treasure,
Devises to
attract the sight,
Or
manufactures for delight,
For luxury,
for modish pleasure—
All this
adorned his room,
Our sage of
eighteen summers’ bloom.
Imported
pipes of Turkish amber,
Fine china,
bronzes—all displayed;
And purely
to delight and pamper,
Perfumes in
crystal jars arrayed;
Steel files
and combs in many guises,
Straight
scissors, curved ones, thirty sizes
Of brushes
for the modern male—
For hair,
and teeth and fingernail.
…
So 200 years ago, Russia exported raw materials (tallow and
timber) and imported luxury consumption goods for the rich. Today Russia
exports raw materials (natural gas and oil) and imports luxury consumption goods
for the rich. We will have more to say on this blog about continuities and
discontinuities in Russia’s history.