Kvass - Cultural References

Cultural References

Kvass has a long tradition in Russian culture. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, monastery kvass is mentioned in the dinner scene as being famous throughout the neighborhood. In Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, kvass is made first thing on a holiday morning. In Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, kvass is mentioned early in the play, "Bring me some kvass, would you?". In Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov and in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, kvass is repeatedly mentioned. In Tolstoy's War and Peace, French soldiers are aware of kvass on entering Moscow, enjoying it but referring to it as "pig's lemonade". In Sholem Aleichem's Motl, Peysi the Cantor's Son, diluted kvass is the focus of one of Motl's older brother's get-rich-quick schemes. The Russian expression "Перебиваться с хлеба на квас" (literally "to clamber from bread to kvass") means to barely make ends meet, remotely similar to (and may be translated as) the expression "to be on the breadline". To better understand the Russian phrase one has to know that in poor families kvass was made from stale leftovers of rye bread. In Against Nature (À rebours) the protagonist, Jean Des Esseintes serves kvass, along with porter and stout, for a funeral banquet "in memory of the host's virility, lately but only temporarily deceased."