This sourcebook provides the first systematic overview of witchcraft laws and trials in Russia and Ukraine from medieval times to the late nineteenth century. Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000–1900 weaves scholarly commentary with never-before-published primary source materials translated from Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. These sources include the earliest references to witchcraft and sorcery, secular and religious laws regarding witchcraft and possession, full trial transcripts, and a wealth of magical spells. The documents present a rich panorama of daily life and reveal the extraordinary power of magical words. Editors Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec present new analyses of the workings and evolution of legal systems, the interplay and tensions between church and state, and the prosaic concerns of the women and men involved in witchcraft proceedings. The extended documentary commentaries also explore the shifting boundaries and fraught political relations between Russia and Ukraine.

"This book provides the first systematic overview of witchcraft laws and trials in Russia and Ukraine, combining scholarly commentary with primary source materials translated from Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian, most of which have never before been published" --

Love for Sale is the first study to examine the ubiquity of commercial sex in Russian literary and artistic production from the nineteenth century through the fin de siècle. Colleen Lucey offers a compelling account of how the figure of the sex worker captivated the public's imagination through depictions in fiction and fine art, bringing to light how imperial Russians grappled with the issue of sexual commerce. Studying a wide range of media—from little-known engravings that circulated in newspapers to works of canonical fiction—Lucey shows how writers and artists used the topic of prostitution both to comment on women's shifting social roles at the end of tsarist rule and to express anxieties about the incursion of capitalist transactions in relations of the heart. Each of the book's chapters focus on a type of commercial sex, looking at how the street walker, brothel worker, demimondaine, kept woman, impoverished bride, and madam traded in sex as a means to acquire capital. Lucey argues that prostitution became a focal point for imperial Russians because it signaled both the promises of modernity and the anxieties associated with Westernization. Love for Sale integrates historical analysis, literary criticism, and feminist theory and conveys how nineteenth-century beliefs about the "fallen woman" drew from medical, judicial, and religious discourse on female sexuality. Lucey invites readers to draw a connection between rhetoric of the nineteenth century and today's debate on sex workers' rights, highlighting recent controversies concerning Russian sex workers to show how imperial discourse is recycled in the twenty-first century.

Ò . . . a marvelous source for the social history of Russian peasant society in the years before the revolution. . . . The translation is superb.Ó ÑSteven Hoch Ò . . . one of the best ethnographic portraits that we have of the Russian village. . . . a highly readable text that is an excellent introduction to the world of the Russian peasantry.Ó ÑSamuel C. Ramer Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia provides a unique firsthand portrait of peasant family life as recorded by Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, an ethnographer and painter who spent four years at the turn of the twentieth century observing the life and customs of villagers in a central Russian province. Unusual in its awareness of the rapid changes in the Russian village in the late nineteenth century and in its concentration on the treatment of women and children, SemyonovaÕs ethnography vividly describes courting rituals, marriage and sexual practices, childbirth, infanticide, child-rearing practices, the lives of women, food and drink, work habits, and the household economy. In contrast to a tradition of rosy, romanticized descriptions of peasant communities by Russian upper-class observers, Semyonova gives an unvarnished account of the harsh living conditions and often brutal relationships within peasant families.

Baba Yaga is a well-known witch from the folklore tradition of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. A fascinating and colorful character, she resembles witches of other traditions but is in many ways unique. Living in the forest in a hut that stands and moves on chicken legs, she travels in a mortar with a pestle and sweeps away her tracks with a broom. In some tales she tries to harm the protagonist, while in others she is helpful. This book investigates the image and ambiguity of Baba Yaga in detail and considers the meanings she has for East Slavic culture. Providing a broad survey of folktales and other sources, it is the most thorough study of Baba Yaga yet published and will be of interest to students of anthropology, comparative literature, folklore, and Slavic and East European studies.

Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials is an analysis of early modern witchcraft trials and legal procedures in Ukrainian lands, along with an examination of quantitative data drawn from the different trials. Kateryna Dysa first describes the ideological background of the tribunals based on works written by priests and theologians that reflect attitudes towards the devil and witches. The main focus of her work, however, is the process leading to witchcraft accusations. From the stories of participants of the trials she shows what led people to enunciate first suspicions then accusations of witchcraft. Finally, she presents a microhistory from one Volhynian village, comparing attitudes towards two "female crimes" in the Ukrainian courts. The study is based on archival research together with previously published witch trials transcripts. Dysa approaches the trials as indications of belief and practice, attempting to understand the actors involved rather than dismiss or condemn them. She takes care to situate Ukrainian witchcraft and its accompanying trials in a broader European context, with comparisons to some African cases as well.

Women known as "shriekers" howled, screamed, convulsed, and tore their clothes. Believed to be possessed by devils, these central figures in a cultural drama known as klikushestvo stirred various reactions among those who encountered them. While sympathetic monks and peasants tended to shelter the shriekers, others analyzed, diagnosed, and objectified them. The Russian Orthodox Church played an important role, for, while moving toward a scientific explanation for the behavior of these women, it was reluctant to abandon the ideas of possession and miraculous exorcism. Possessed is the first book to examine the phenomenon of demon possession in Russia. Drawing upon a wide range of sources--religious, psychiatric, ethnographic, and literary--Worobec looks at klikushestvo over a broad span of time but focuses mainly on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when all of Russian society felt the pressure of modernization. Worobec's definitive study is as much an account of perceptions of the klikushi as an analysis of the women themselves, for, even as modern rationalism began to affect religious belief in Russia, explanations of the shriekers continued to differ widely. Examining various cultural constructions, Worobec shows how these interpretations were rooted in theology, village life and politics, and gender relationships. Engaging broad issues in Russian history, women's history, and popular religious culture, Possessed will interest readers across several disciplines. Its insights into the cultural phenomenon of possession among Russian peasant women carry rich implications for understanding the ways in which a complex society treated women believed to be out of control.