Recently, while browsing through Estonian material (because why not), I came across two interesting texts referring to a term that is close to my heart, the “snuff renaissance”. After all, being a snuff user during the Polish Renaissance, it is nice to read small mentions of temporary fashions that occurred not only in Poland, but also in other parts of the world. In these particular finds, the Estonian press reports on a returning fashion in England. Although in these cases the reasons for taking it sound quite trivial and quite funny.
Snuff is back in fashion. Taking snuff has been taken into consideration again for the following reason. Car drivers have difficulty smoking a cigar, pipe or cigarette while driving fast, and tobacco in powder form has once again been used. One of the advantages of using tobacco in this form is that it protects the nose from dust, of which there is a lot on the road. London snuff sellers will clearly feel the consequences of this new method, because snuff sales are still growing.
Source: Postimees, No. 1, 2 January 1912, p. 2
I suspect that we would find here a few people who practice taking snuff while driving, although I do not think that this was the main reason why they were tempted to reach for this substance. Nevertheless, the English fashion from the beginning of the 20th century did not last long, because already in 1936 (as reported by Esmaspäev: piltidega nädalleht, No. 49, 5 December 1936, p. 5) another snuff renaissance is mentioned again, but this time the reason (at least for the residents of the capital) was to prevent colds caused by the London fog.
It seems that for the English, a snuff renaissance occurs every 30 years, because another one is reported in the well-known British Pathé material from 1964. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XFxa1KT4gM
Was just about to query on Estonian snuff. I almost wonder, was it even a thing and all that was sold there were the imported makes? Skimming through the surface a while ago, I managed to find only the first bit on renaisance.
A difficult topic, because the oldest information about snuff that I found in Estonian is the one I wrote down above. It is hard for me to say whether there were any factories there during the Russian Empire, which can only be proven by finding a good Russian database. In the independence period after 1918, I did not find any information about any factory producing snuff (but tobacco factories making cigarettes did exist). The only certain mention is lisitng snuff in the excise tax of January 11, 1935 and one sentence in one story by an Estonian writer, so whether it was available there - yes, it was. Nevertheless, based on the fact that the press focused heavily on English curiosities in this area (and one over a hundred-year-old German) suggests that there was little interest in this product in Estonia. But that is not a bad thing. According to the “tobacco geography” of the late 18th century, only four European nations were considered to be the ones that loved snuff the most, and it seems to me that each of them also had some kind of snuff renaissance in their history. But they weren’t Estonians, but they weren’t English either.
In the most important Polish book on snuffboxes, you can find the sentence: In Scandinavian countries, thanks to the youth, a real renaissance of the snuff custom has come.
I have never delved too much into Scandinavian materials, so I will not say much about this fragment. However, I have a lot of confidence in my predecessor on the subject, so I am convinced that he did not mean snus. The book was published in 1976, but the text had been written since the 1950s.
Edit: Just to be clear, I took a look at the Scandinavian peninsula itself. The Swedish material confirms the words from the book and the snuff renaissance is mentioned in 1951, 1956 and 1959 (I will not quote because only fragments were visible due to copyright). In general, the Swedish texts are a real mine of knowledge - so much that it is a pity that we do not have a Swedish snuff historian with us (there is so much material that you could easily write a book).
I took a cursory look at the Norwegian material. I did not come across the term “renaissance”, but in the 1990s a small stir was caused among the youth there by the appearance of English Gawith Hoggarth snuffs.
The Finnish material is rather historical. I found a few manufacturers from the 1920s and one wonderful advertisement with a visualization of a Finnish snuff (you don’t see this every day).
As you very well know, snus can be confusing. Swedish snuff, cough, cough. Slippery porridge!
I can’t even decide what to start my reply with. Maybe with a “funny” question (rhetorical, if you will) - have you tried Svenskt snus… nasally?
Now seriously, we need snus historian in this house. Would love to clarify a couple of questions.
And yes, snus regained popularity in Sweden in 1960s - even some luktsnus products were imported from the UK. Knut Ljunglöf’s grandson attempted to launch Ljunglöfs brand nasal snuff, although it was complicated since the name was Swedish Match proprietary.
Yes, searching in Scandinavian languages is very difficult when it comes to this particular word, which is why I never liked to venture there. And it’s a pity, because there really is a lot of good material to look through - you just have to really extract a lot from the context. Now I’m just flying through these countries for fun. After writing the book, I don’t have anything to grab onto, and I like to search and gather information. You learn a few interesting facts along the way.
Last year, on a National Snuff Day (24 oktober, Snusets dag), Swedish Royal Library on their Fb site greeted the folk and shared the link to a digitised Swedish “snus” recipes book (compiled and issued in mid 19th century, if I remember it right). As an avid snus (of all kinds) user and DIYer, I nearly fell off my chair - at last, finally, the old Swedish snus recipes revealed! Run to the stove, grab the pot - big cook time!
And then, rushing through the pages, I nearly fell off my chair once again. From disappointment, my friend. It turned out that all the prescriptions were well-known old snuff recipes, i. e. Swedish translations of snuff prescriptions, harvested from German tobacco processing handbooks. No stoving/cooking whatsoever. Not a single authentic Swedish recipe…
I suspect that the terminology problem may occur in several languages, not only Swedish (although here it is quite difficult to overcome even for Swedes themselves, as we can see). I had the same case in Polish, where “tabaka” means snuff, but also a less frequently used word for tobacco (and also for pipe tobacco). The worst thing was to come across information about the “tabaka” factory, and as it turned out later, the manufacturer was mainly involved in the production of cigarettes.
And of course, it is similar in American texts, where sometimes we have no information in the text whether it is a moist or dry snuff, so we have to read the context more carefully.
For people just entering the world of tobacco, these are minor difficulties that they struggle with when they have to find information that fits them. Fortunately, we have this behind us and it is easier for us to operate these searches after all this years in the community.
