Jens Raevald is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Tartu, Estonia, as well as a full-time history, geography, and history of art teacher at the Järvamaa Vocational Training Centre. He has agreed to meet with us remotely to discuss his research on the spread of prostitution in Tartu under the Russian Empire, between 1880 and 1914. You can read his Master’s thesis on the topic here (in Estonian).
Henri Gervex, Rolla, oil on canvas, 1878
Mathilde Larive: How did you come to this topic? You have been investigating it for your Master’s thesis, and now for your PhD, you must really like working on it!
I encountered this topic on an excursion at the National Archives, and they showed these albums with photos. When I started my MA in History, I had a problem finding a research topic. My initial interests did not really fit, and I then remembered this excursion at the Archives, this big album, full of ladies. At the same time I was investigating my own family tree and I saw that a lot of women went to Tartu, without any other information afterwards. I was confused and wondered if maybe the reason for that lack of data was that they had started working in that business. This is why I started working on that topic, but so far, I have not encountered any of my relatives!
What were your findings while investigating for your master’s degree? How does that relate to your current work for your PhD?
I found around 1.700 prostitutes, and 250 of them had connections with church books, which registered all of their family histories. My PhD will attempt to recreate the webs of life stories and trajectories of these prostitutes, from birth to death. I am trying to find common characteristics between them to determine what led them to make this life choice.
Some historians of the nineteenth century already have ideas regarding the choice of prostitution. Most Russian historians argue that they chose this career out of laziness and poor family conditions. I once read that 87% of St Petersburg’s prostitutes at the time were orphans. The situation in Tartu appears to be different: most prostitutes had a living mother, but some had fathers who were already dead when they started their careers.
Could you describe the legal framework at the time? How did it work in the Russian Empire?
In the second half of the nineteenth century, prostitution was authorised in every European country, but the first one to legalise it was France. The idea behind this shift was the ability to control if women regularly went to the doctor’s office. With the prevalence of STIs at the time, it was safer to control the health of prostitutes than to keep this issue covert and secret for the sake of morals and repression of this sinful activity. Therefore, France legalised prostitution in 1812, and put it under police control, then other countries followed this lead, but not in full proportions. In England, the police control was only carried out in harbour cities, or cities with high military garrisons, but not usual towns. In the United States of America, the “free country”, they did not monitor at all what women were doing, but this was done in all European countries, to different extents.
In Russia, the legalisation occurred in 1844, under the reign of Nicholas I, mostly known as a religious and conservative sovereign. However, the syphilis epidemic had been spreading to the elites of St Petersburg at the beginning of the decade, urging him to take a more reasonable stance on the issue. The police control of prostitution lasted in the Russian Empire until the Revolution, and in Estonia until 1940, before becoming illegal again.
In the time of Estonian independence, between the two world wars, there were some half decisions: brothels were prohibited but independent prostitution was allowed. In Tsarist Russia, both were allowed. Also, in the beginning of the 20th century, voices were raised on the exploitative aspect of prostitution as well as the condition of prostitutes, shamed as opposed to their clients. “When men visited brothels, it was just what men do, but when women sell their bodies, it is shameful”. In the biggest cities, St Petersburg and Moscow, it was forbidden to open new brothels. Historical materials regarding Tartu after 1909 are harder to find, and I cannot date for sure the end of the Russian Empire there, but in Tallinn, we know for sure that the old system stayed in place until the February revolution.
Figure 1 Map of Estonia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The control of women was the duty of the city police, and at the time there was no state police in Russia. Each city managed its own system, and the conditions in which it was conducted were very irregular. The city councils tended not to allocate funds to supervise prostitutes and improve their living conditions. Tartu was an exception, one of the very few cities within the Russian Empire to allocate a significant sum to the police regarding prostitution. In Tallinn, they gave around 15 roubles a year to the committee in charge of regulating sex work.
Legally, prostitutes had to visit a doctor at least once a week if they were young. It really depended on the town, and in Tartu they went twice a week, while in Rakvere they could only go once a week. In the police registries, the oldest prostitute in Tartu was 77 years old, and in the medical documents, she was infected by a client recently. The elderly women had a looser control, and only got examined once a month. In Tartu, it was the responsibility of the city hospital, and an appointed town doctor personally controlled every woman. It was a lot of work, and in 1897, Dr. Christian Johann Ströhmberg conducted more than 16.000 exams.
And in terms of health conditions, what was the situation like for the women? What would happen in case of a pregnancy and what were the illnesses they were most likely to contract in their activity?
Prostitutes usually did not have children, as diseases such as syphilis made them sterile. In the medical side, being a prostitute was quite a good thing, as in the Russian Empire, only two professions received free regular medical aid: soldiers and prostitutes. If prostitutes went to the doctor and had syphilis or another STI, the medical care was free. In literature, I have even seen that some women wrote themselves down to be registered as prostitutes to benefit from the free healthcare, but I do not know if such cases occurred in Tartu. The quality of medical aid was an important argument, as the system was very poor in Tallinn, and prostitutes did not want to register there as it gave them no compensation. In Tartu, however, the doctor was very involved with the issue, and did his best to give women good medical monitoring. Some prostitutes even came to Tartu from Tallinn or Valga for the quality of healthcare compared to their hometowns.
If the city police were in charge of monitoring prostitution for public health reasons, what were the relationships between prostitutes and this institution?
The relationship with the police was not as shiny and ideal as the one with doctors. Prostitutes usually hated policemen because their attitude towards them was interlinked with bribery. There are reports where police officers themselves describe their ex-gratia visits to brothels and subsequent untold agreements. Policemen held friendly relationships with brothelkeepers, who were all women.
The only men allowed in brothels, along with the clients, were musicians. However, this was prohibited in 1903. After that, there were no legal or moral reasons for men to be found in brothels. Of course, there were some cheaters. I read a letter from Narva, that stated that one brothelkeeper, officially named Maria Ivanova, was in reality Ivan…a man. Such cases also occurred in Moscow, where it was quite usual. But in Tartu, certainly not! There, most brothelkeepers were friends or relatives, like a sort of caste. Their sons and daughters married, sometimes they would watch out for the neighbouring brothel in the absence of the owner… It was quite a gang.
It is clear that men were not only clients, as quite many prostitutes had lovers, who that manipulated them. The criminal part of society gathered in brothels quite often. Sadly, there are also records where the brothelkeepers and some of the prostitutes were relatives, like a family business. I am afraid that these women were not asked their opinion on the matter. They were rushed into this path from a very young age, usually 15 to 17 years old in Russia. In Tartu, maybe they were a bit older, but usually women started as prostitutes before they turned 20.
What are the main artifacts and historical objects you have been able to work with? Could you describe the way the registries were organised?
Artifacts is quite the term. I am mainly investigating police archives, where there are personal logs, reports, and registries. Sometimes, I find letters stating that a certain woman was at the hospital for a certain disease at a certain time, etc. So mainly police material.
The registries I base some of my research on, and that can be seen at the National Archives, are organised by number. However, this system was not adopted at a bigger scale, so it is just a fragment within all the files we currently have access to. In Tallinn, they had annual alphabetical registries, a book with all the registration papers and personal information. This does not make the work easier, as they did not ask for a lot of data: name, father’s name, surname, nationality (often false) and parish. In Tartu, the information was a bit more thorough, and you can often read where they worked, or their birthday. I have also investigated Rakvere, a small city in the North-East of Estonia. For 5.000 inhabitants, they had two brothels, but none of the prostitutes there were from the town. They either came from Tartu or Tallinn.
All these prostitutes can be divided in two categories: the brothel and independent prostitutes, who were not usually from the town, and had made this clear, definitive decision about their career. On the other side, around 70% of prostitutes were clandestine, not registered, and worked locally. Most of them were either born in Tartu or had moved there with their parents. There are quite a few cases where the woman’s family lived in the countryside, so she moved to the city alone, and sold her body.
How were the living conditions of the prostitutes at the time? How many were there? Life expectancy?
Their living conditions were average for the time. As an example, there was no difference between an ordinary house and a brothel. Maybe there were some places where the brothel was also a bar, and a more regular place to meet up, but that was not common. In Estonia, each prostitute working in a brothel had a room with a kitchen and a separate door. When there were two floors on the house, there were many staircases so that they could live quite autonomously. In Russia, the situation was different, with a stronger role given to the brothelkeeper, and the privileges of workers were reduced. There were even brothels with outside locks on the rooms’ doors, so that prostitutes could not leave at all. In Tartu, it was softer.
Were you able to gain access to more personal records, like diaries? Or are they too difficult to find?
They are almost impossible to find, and for a good reason: most prostitutes had a very low level of instruction. In Russia, around 90% of them did not read nor write. Usually, in Estonia, they could, but not very well, and were not really interested in writing anyway. I think that some prostitutes elsewhere in Europe likely held diaries at the time, but they did not have the same clientele. They were also not expected nor required to register at the police station. I have not encountered prostitutes from the local nobility during my research, only a few from Lithuania and Poland. But these women did not have any money, just a good name.
What was their average life expectancy?
Most lived as usual people, about 50 to 70 years old, but some died in young age. One girl died at 21, dozens died around 30 and 35 years old. They usually lived quite old with their diseases, which I correlate with the discovery of a new treatment for syphilis at the beginning of the 20th century. German scientists discovered Salvarsan (an arsenic-based drug) in 1909, which was healthier than previous alternatives based on mercury. The invention of the latex condom was also a huge breakthrough from another point of view. Most of the prostitutes that I studied lived to see the October Revolution, and after the Second World War for some of them. When you imagine a birthdate around 1875-1880, this is quite impressive.
Who were the consumers of sex workers’ services? Where and how did they work?
A French historian wrote that in small French towns, brothels were comparable to clubs or social houses. People went there to play card games and speak to each other. In Estonia and Russia, maybe it was something similar, especially in the 19th century, it was quite common to frequent brothels. When men were not married, it was usual. If they had a wife, then it was considered a sin. Of course, there were exceptions, but most clients were single: students from the University, soldiers, officers, or seamen.
The army clientele is interesting as, despite the free healthcare, soldiers did not get paid as much as prostitutes, around 50 half roubles a month. The average prostitute asked for 1 rouble per client, which was the usual wage for one day of work in factories. When connected to the bigger picture, it was one of the only ways accessible for women’s financial independence. The wages in factories were very low, around 10 roubles a month, when you could make more money by selling yourself. There is a nuance here: the rule of 1, 2, 3 roubles a client could only be claimed by young and beautiful prostitutes. Older women who had a problem with alcohol held a much lower value on the market and struggled to sustain themselves. Some of them did not even have enough money to pay for rent, leading to high rates of homelessness. They lived in the forest, under boats, on the streets. One newspaper in Tallinn mentions some prostitute ‘with teeth’ living in a cave not far away from the city.
What was the geographical repartition of prostitutes in Tartu, at the end of the nineteenth century?
In Tartu, prostitutes and brothels were mostly located in the Ülejõe neighborhood, with for example Puiestee, Roosi, Jaama and Pikk streets. Pikk street was the epicentre of prostitution in the 1880’s and stayed strong in the new century. Another centre for prostitution was Supilinn, especially Oa street that hosted some preeminent brothels. Karlova had a significant importance earlier, and we lack data to talk about this period as most buildings in what is currently known as this suburb were built in the 20th century. The current business centre (Kvartal, Tasku) is partly built on former brothels. To generalise, prostitution was mostly located in the North-East suburbs, and never in the city centre. It was illegal for prostitutes to solicitate or walk at night there. If they were caught there drunk, they were immediately taken to the police station.
Figure 2 Map of central Tartu
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