Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000-1900: A Sourcebook

532 Pages·2020·10.15 MB·English

by  Valerie A. Kivelson, Christine D Worobec

WITCHCRAFT
IN RUSSIA
AND UKRAINE,
1000–1900
A volume in the NIU Series in
SLAVIC, EAST EUROPEAN, AND EURASIAN STUDIES
Edited by Christine D. Worobec
FOR A LIST OF BOOKS IN THE SERIES, VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT
CORNELLPRESS.CORNELL.EDU.
WITCHCRAFT
IN RUSSIA
AND UKRAINE,
1000–1900
A Sourcebook
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Edited by
VALERIE A. KIVELSON AND
CHRISTINE D. WOROBEC
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
an imprint of Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission
in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell
University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York
14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.
First published 2020 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kivelson, Valerie A. (Valerie Ann), editor. | Worobec,
Christine D., 1955– editor.
Title: Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000–1900 : a sourcebook /
edited by Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec.
Description: Ithaca [New York] : Northern Illinois University Press
an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2020. | Series: NIU series in
Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019054363 (print) | LCCN 2019054364 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501750649 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501750656
(paperback) | ISBN 9781501750663 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501750670 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Witchcraft—Russia—History. | Witchcraft—
Ukraine—History. | Magic—Russia—History. | Magic—
Ukraine—History. | Witchcraft—Law and legislation—Russia. |
Witchcraft—Law and legislation—Ukraine.
Classification: LCC BF1584.R8 W58 2020 (print) |
LCC BF1584.R8 (ebook) | DDC 133.4/30947—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054363
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054364
Cover image: “Baba Iaga deretsia s krokodilom,” D. A. Rovinskii, 1881.
Slavic and East European Collections, The New York Public Library
Digital Collections.
We dedicate this volume to our esteemed colleagues, Kateryna Dysa, Olga
Kosheleva, Aleksandr Lavrov, and Elena B. Smilianskaia, for their intellectual
insights, generosity, support, and, above all, friendship. Without their
substantive contributions, beginning with the inspiring Paris workshop on
Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, and continuing with their willingness
to share transcriptions of archival documents and their ongoing
intellectual support, this volume would not have come into being.
In the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. I, the servant of God
(name), shall arise and bless myself, crossing myself I shall leave the hut by
the doors, I shall leave the yard by the gates. I shall go out onto the wide road
with my face to the east and my back to the west. I shall bow and pray. In
the open country on the wide plain there are four brothers, the wild winds,
east, west, south and north. As you [winds] served the true Christ, the king
of heaven, so may you serve me, the good servant of God (name). Take from
me, the servant of God, grief and dryness, and black misery, take them away
and do not let them drop against the wind or with the wind, against the sun
or with the sun, against the stream and with the stream, and through the
flowing brooks and swift rivers, through high mountains and dark forests,
through iron fences. Walking from the hall, or sitting on the stair or bed, or
lying on the bed, or sitting at the table, with his father or mother or sister
or brother, or friend or all his family, take him by the white hands and instill
in his white body and ardent heart and black liver and seventy-seven veins
(sinews) and seven joints that he may not live without me, the slave of God
N, nor eat nor sleep, that he may agonize with a deadly anguish, an anguish
he may not eat or drink away, or wash away in the bathhouse, but only run
after me, take me by the neck, kiss me on the lips, and look no more on his
father or mother, or sister or family or anyone at all; so may he think of me,
slave of God N, during the day in sunlight and at night by moonlight, at
dawn and sunset, at the new moon and the old moon and at the quarters of
the moon and on the days in between. May my words be firm forever and
ever, Amen!
— 1860s love spell recorded by P. N. Rybnikov, Pesni, sobrannye P. N.
Rybnikovym, 2nd ed., ed. E. A. Guzinskii (Moscow, 1910; repr. Moscow,
1991), 214–15; translated in W. F. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight:
Magic in Russia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1999), 181–82.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xiii
Timeline xv
Acknowledgments xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
Note on Translation and Transliteration xxiii
Introduction 1
Part I. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION, LAW,
AND PROSECUTION 13
1. Early Accounts of Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Magic in Medieval Rus 15
1.1. Pagan Soothsayers and Magicians in the Primary Chronicle 16
1.2. “Maybe, but God Knows”: Sorcery in the Novgorodian Chronicle (1227) 22
1.3. Bishop Serapion of Vladimir Condemns Belief in Witchcraft (1274) 23
1.4. St. Alimpii and the Leper Who Consulted Magicians (Kyivan Patericon) 24
2. Witchcraft and Politics in Muscovy and the Hetmanate 26
2.1. The Death of Maria of Tver, Ivan III’s First Wife, by Witchcraft (1467) 28
2.2. Witchcraft Accusations against Grand Princess Sofia Paleologue (1497) 29
2.3. Witchcraft Accusations against Grand Princess Solomonia Saburova (1525) 30
VIII CONTENTS
2.4. Trials of Maksim the Greek for Treason, Heresy, and Sorcery
(1525 & 1531) 31
2.5. The Great Moscow Fire and the Sprinkling of Human Hearts by the
Tsar’s Grandmother, Anna Glinskaia (1547) 36
2.6. Ivan Peresvetov’s 1549 Tale about Sorcery at Court in the Final Days
of the Byzantine Empire (Excerpts from the “Greater Petition”) 40
2.7. Jerome Horsey on Witchcraft at the Court of Ivan IV (the Terrible) 44
2.8. The Vicious Sorcerer Eleazar Bomelius Described in a Russian Chronicle 48
2.9. Sorcery Allegations from Ivan the Terrible’s Correspondence with Prince
Kurbskii and Kurbskii’s History of the Grand Prince of Moscow 49
2.10. Loyalty Oaths 59
2.11. Grigorii Kotoshikhin and Samuel Collins on the Alleged Poisoning
or Bewitchment of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich’s First Betrothed,
and on Bewitchment at Weddings (1647) 70
2.12. Hetman Ivan Briukhovetskii’s Burning of Witches (1666) 74
2.13. Political Sorcery against the Prussian King (1760) 77
3. Laws and Guidelines concerning the Prosecution of Witchcraft,
Late Twelfth Century to 1885 79
3.1. Byzantine Church Law and Its Echoes in Russia 93
Kormchaia kniga (1653) 94
Excerpt from a court case from the late 1660s containing a fragment
of the Kormchaia 96
Church Statute of Iaroslav the Wise (late twelfth/early thirteenth century) 98
Russian Orthodox penitential listings involving sorcery and magic
(fourteenth—early nineteenth centuries) 100
The Domostroi: A household handbook of the mid-sixteenth century 109
3.2. Excerpts from Charles V’s 1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina
and the 1559 Polish Version 112
3.3. Procedures for the Courts and Affairs of Towns under Magdeburg
Law under the Polish Crown (1559) 114
3.4. Questions and Answers from the Moscow Church Council (Stoglav)
of 1551 114
3.5. Ivan IV’s 1552 Law on Witchcraft 121
3.6. 1589 Law on the Honor of Witches 122
3.7. 1648 Decree against Devilish Conduct 124
3.8. Sobornoe ulozhenie: The Conciliar Law Code of 1649 126
3.9. Aleksei Mikhailovich’s Decree Prohibiting Witchcraft and Activities
Repellent to God (1653) 128
CONTENTS Ix
3.10. “Newly Established Articles on Robbery, Brigandage, and Murder and
Related Decree” (1669) 130
3.11. Grigorii Kotoshikhin on Muscovite Judicial Process, Torture,
and Execution (1660s) 131
3.12. Peter I’s 1715 Decree against Shriekers (the Demonically Possessed) 134
3.13. Peter I’s 1716 Military Statute and Suggested Revisions to
Its Religious Articles (1725) 137
3.14. Excerpts from the Spiritual Regulation (1721) 143
3.15. Holy Synod’s Decree against the Swimming of Individuals (1721) 145
3.16. Empress Anna Ioannovna’s Decree against Wizardry (1731) 147
3.17. Catherine II’s 1767 Instructions to the Legislative Commission
and the Holy Synod’s Response 148
3.18. Senate’s Ruling Admonishing Judges (1770) 150
3.19. Catherine II’s Decrees (1775 and 1782) 155
3.20. Excerpts from the Criminal Laws: 1842, 1845, and 1885 editions 156
4. Witchcraft Trials’ Processes and Extralegal Prosecution of
Witchcraft: Complete Records 162
A. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC) and
The Hetmanate 162
4.1. Andrei Kurbskii’s Sorcery Allegations against His Wife, Maria Iurevna
Golshanskaia, in Divorce Proceedings (1578) 165
4.2. False Accusation of Witchcraft against Siemionowa Pauciutina,
a Cossack Woman (1634) 170
4.3. Swimming of Witches in Podillia (1711) 171
4.4. Witchcraft and Infanticide (1753) 172
B. Muscovy and Imperial Russia 180
4.5. The Trial of the Old Peasant Woman Baba Daritsa and Others (1647) 186
4.6. A Case of Suspicious Roots: Rogataia Baba and the Use of Torture
(1647–48) 202
4.7. A Mass Outbreak of Possession in the Town of Lukh (1656–60) 207
4.8. The 1758 Trial of Chamberlain Petr Vasilevich Saltykov 220
4.9. The 1764–65 Case against the Peasant Ekaterina Ivanova for Dabbling
in Witchcraft 238
4.10. An Epidemic of Demonic Possession in a Urals Foundry Town
(1839–40) 244
x CONTENTS
4.11. The 1853 Case against the Serf Gerasim Fedotov for Witchcraft 251
4.12. The Mob Murder of Agrafena Dmitrievna Chindiaikina, a Suspected
Witch (1880) 257
4.13. A Woman Accused of Sorcery Has Her Day in Court (Early 1900s) 258
Part II. MAGICAL PRACTICES, EVERYDAY MATTERS,
AND THE POWER OF WORDS: TRIAL EXCERPTS 263
5. Healing and Harming 265
5.1. Consultation with the Doctors of the Apothecary Chancellery (1628) 266
5.2. A Case of Enchanted Brew (1653) 269
5.3. Healing or Cursing? Mysterious Ingredients Raise Suspicion (1658) 271
5.4. The Bewitchment of Priest David and His Family by Their Domestic
Workers (1676) 272
5.5. Witchcraft Suspected as the Cause of a Child’s Death (PLC, 1732) 279
5.6. A Case of Milk Magic: Borrowed Pots and Bewitched Cows
(PLC, 1728–31) 281
5.7. An Alleged Murder by Way of Witchcraft (1844–45) 284
5.8. No Place Is Safe from This Witch: The Case against Agafia Polikarpova
(1848–49) 287
6. Sex/Love/Anti-Love Magic 292
6.1. A Case of Peasant Women’s Love Magic and Vengeance, Shatsk (1647) 293
6.2. Bewitchment at Weddings (1648) 300
6.3. Iatsykha Polyveichykha Seeks to Bewitch her Husband’s Lover
(Hetmanate, 1675) 308
6.4. A Case of Rape and Spells to Inflame Desire (Semen Aigustov,
Borovsk, 1689) 310
6.5. A Wife Suspected of Witchcraft: The Case of Anna Grekowiczewa
(PLC, 1717) 327
6.6. Seeking a Witch or Sorcerer to Kill a Husband? (PLC, 1742) 329
7. Power Relations and Hierarchy 333
7.1. “Making My Master and All Women Bend to My Will”: A Case
of Subversive Spells (1648) 334
7.2. The Serf Woman Onuitka Avenges Ill-Treatment by the Estate
Bailiff (1658) 336
7.3. The Servant Motruna Perysta Accused of Bewitching Her Master’s
Family (PLC, 1730) 337