Valerie Kivelson - 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

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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, 10001900 : 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: WitchcraftRussiaHistory. | WitchcraftUkraineHistory. | MagicRussiaHistory. | MagicUkraineHistory. | WitchcraftLaw and legislationRussia. | WitchcraftLaw and legislationUkraine.

Classification: LCC BF1584.R8 W58 2020 (print) | LCC BF1584.R8 (ebook) | DDC 133.4/30947dc23

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), 21415; translated in W. F. Ryan, The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 18182.