ABSTRACT
In the early months of 1905, Vologda was, like many other parts of the Russian empire, seized by unrest among the schoolchildren of the city. To the disquiet of authorities, both locally and in St. Petersburg, the children boycotted classes and held a number of political meetings at which they made a list of demands attacking the restrictions imposed on their lives by the rules in force at secondary schools since 1874. What the boys and girls of Vologda wanted, according to a secret letter by the chief of police at the Interior Ministry, included not only political changes such as “the abolition of searches” but also “the right to visit the theatre freely,” “the right to wear one’s own clothes outside school hours,” and not least “the creation of a smoking room.”2 The situation in Vologda neatly illustrates how smoking can be seen at one and the same time as an activity signifying maturity, which children may be encouraged to emulate round about the borders of adulthood, and as a subversive practice that requires restriction and which may accordingly be espoused as a way of asserting children’s difference from adults and their solidarity with their peer group.
