Dysa , Kateryna Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials: Volhynia, Podolia, and Ruthenia, 17th–18th Centuries (review)

Abstract

SEER, 99, 3, JULY 2021 568 Dysa, Kateryna. Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials: Volhynia, Podolia, and Ruthenia, 17th–18th Centuries. Central European University Press, Budapest and New York, 2020. x + 254 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00: €65.00: £60.00. Some areas of the Slav world get little attention in English-language witchcraft studies, although publications in Slav languages have increased in quantity and quality since the end of the Communist regimes. We are fortunate then that two new books were published in 2020 which are valuable additions to the existing literature, at least for Russia and Ukraine, and especially for those who have no competence in Slavic languages. The first was the very useful Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000–1900: A Sourcebook by Valerie Kivelson and Christine Worobec (Ithaca, NY, 2020). This has now been followed by Kateryna Dysa’s thoughtful and detailed but more narrowly focused book, which we review here, dealing with witchcraft trials in the western part of Ukraine in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Kivelson and Worobec’s book presents annotated translations of documents relating to witchcraft legislation, accusations and trials, mostly in Russia ‎ but also containing some Ukrainian material. Kateryna Dysa’s book is more specialized and deals with witchcraft beliefs and trials in Volhynia, Podolia and Ruthenia, three palatinates of the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional (largely Catholic but also Uniate, Orthodox, Protestant of several kinds, Jewish, Karaite and Muslim) Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with some material from the (mostly Orthodox) Cossack Hetmanate, in the latter part of the Commonwealth and the early period of its incorporation into the Russian empire. It is based on records, mostly of town courts, of 198 cases, mostly recorded in Polish or Latin. Dysa is concerned less with publishing the texts of trial proceedings (the Ukrainian sources are anyway ‘laconic’ she notes) than with examining the underlying beliefs, social contexts, and legal concepts and procedures in witchcraft cases in her chosen area, which she does well, with plenty of comparative references to Russian and West European literature, and occasional observations when she thinks that Ukrainian evidence may cast doubt on received wisdom about witchcraft and witch trials. The book is strictly about the period and region stated in the title, and only about cases which reached town courts — it does not discuss the punishment of witches at village level for which there may be only anecdotal or folkloric evidence. Chapter one of the book is devoted to the complex legal background. The town courts of the palatinates employed a variety of legal codes, mostly based on the Sachsenspiegel, Magdeburg Law, the Lithuanian Statutes and the Institutio Carolina. Torture and executions are discussed — the relatively low REVIEWS 569 usage of torture is worth noting, as is the fact that most of the accused were town dwellers, with a few peasants; nobles (szlachta — quite a large group) were tried in a separate court. This chapter also examines the role of gossip in accusations and evidence. Most of the accusations were against women, and not infrequently made by women. ChaptertwodiscussesUkrainianOrthodoxdemonologyanditsiconography (with illustrations) and the association of demons with witchcraft. Dysa concentrates on Orthodox demonology but also points out that the mixture of religions and ethnicities in the Polish-Lithanian Commonwealth meant that both in written works and in beliefs there was considerable interpenetration between Catholic and Orthodox culture, also that the Orthodox clergy, though condemning witchcraft, showed relatively little interest in witchcraft from a legal, theological or polemic viewpoint. Chapterthree,‘BeyondtheTrials,ortheAnatomyofWitchcraftAccusations’, deals with the nature of witchcraft accusations in a sequence of summarized trials and incidents interspersed with authorial comment. There follow subtopics : ‘Family and Witchcraft’, presented in much the same way but very informative; ‘Rivalry and Bewitchment’ on accusations of magical cropspoiling and killing of livestock, and the use of witchcraft against business rivals; ‘Dangerous Proximity: Master Servant Relationships’ deals with the use of magic and witchcraft, mostly by servants seeking to harm masters or mistresses or to gain favour with them. Next is ‘Subtle Love Matters’, described as ‘an essential part of the Ukrainian witchcraft trials’. It includes cases of love and anti-love magic but rather surprisingly fails to mention the love and anti-love oral...