Introduction: The Devil We Know and the Devils We Don’t Know

Abstract

While today the devil is hardly the subject of sermons, he can still be found in numerous literary works. Literature, as it were, has given the devil a new home. According to Elena Volkova, it is not a coincidence that we frequently encounter hell in literature, as “[a]ny work of literature that deals with conflict, pain, suffering, grief, misery, and disaster (and which does not, at least indirectly) bears an analogy of hell […]” (Volkova, “Visions of Heaven and Hell,” 2007). Literary works that have emerged in the West and also partly in the Russian tradition have been shaped by Judeo-Christian visions of hell. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, folk traditions added new facets to the biblical devil. But it was not until the early modern period that individual authors portrayed devils that were only loosely based on biblical motives and inventions of the Middle Ages.