The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible

The Domostroi is part "Miss Manners" part "Better Homes and Gardens" for Russia under the Czars. It is a fascinating glimpse at another time in a very foreign place.The book discusses a wide variety of daily rituals and domestic tasks to be done by various members of the household. For example, there are instructions on subjects as varied as "How to Invite Priests and Monks Into One's House to Pray", "How a Good Woman Supervises Her Domestic's Needlework" to "Recepies for All Sorts of Honey Drinks: How to distill and brew." The information, while dry, gives the reader a very clear understanding of what daily life was like in Russian in the 15th and 16th centuries. While probably not of interest to all, it certainly is a marvelous resource to those seeking a deeper understanding of the "Russian soul."

One of the best ways to get to know a people is to learn what they believe, value, love, honor, and what they fear, loathe, and seek to avoid. One of the best guides to these attitudes and beliefs is what they do; this is the work they looked to to find out what to do. To learn it in their own words, articulately expressed and classically framed is a treat. To find it in a book that generations of a nation kept as their practical handbook for daily life is a marvel. It's like a combination of Emily Post, Betty Crocker, and the Old Farmer's Almanac, with elements of the Book of Common Prayer thrown in. You won't find critical analysis, postmodern theory, contextualization or anything condescending here -- just their own values and rules for living, as they held them. It ain't everything, but it sure is a leg up on knowing what even modern Russians are about. And it is intensely amusing. Communism, Maffia and modernity have taken their toll, but old Orthodox Slavic values are alive especially among some more traditional emigrees. You will find their prescription for living here, flatfooted, naive, often amiable, occasionally hilarious, and sometimes enough to make a genteel modern person cringe. Whether you want to revive it, analyze it, critique it, or just understand it, this gives enormous insight into a tradition we need to know about. It is of the nature of "source material," unless you are a Russian in search of a reference work for life. But it is well done, an important work to have translated. For anyone planning to visit Moscow during the rule of Ivan Grozny, this is almost the first thing to pack in your time machine--maybe right after your kaftan, axe, Slavonic Prayer Book and "prazdniki"-- travelling icon. It is well enough translated and introduced, but the text itself is its own best reason to be and be read. Pouncy does well to let it be in a good, accessible form, in our language, in our alien world.