Reading Russian fortunes: print culture, gender and divination in Russia from 1765

Abstract

Faith Wigzell. Reading Russian Fortunes: Print Culture, Gender and in Russia from 1765. Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature. New York and Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xi, 250 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. $64.95, cloth. Opening book with old Soviet joke that in Russia the future is certain, only past is in doubt (one of two epigraphs), Faith Wigzell makes main subject of her study. She seeks to analyze both its domestic and professional practice in Russia reflections of processes of cultural transmission, assimilation and rejection (p. 1). In her Introduction, author points to previous neglect of topic by contemporary observers as well as by current scholarship. In this respect, her book is first detailed study of history of publishing, readership, and social acceptability of (dream interpretation books, in particular) from their first appearance in Russia in 1765. Intended as a contribution to debate about nature of popular study focuses on fortune-telling among urban and literate population rather than on rural peasantry (p. 2). The gender approach is prominent throughout whole investigation, for is primarily considered in book as part of women's culture (p. 8). The book consists of an Introduction, eight chapters and a Conclusion. Chapter I presents evolution and different types of dream and other guides, from earliest, directly translated from Western sources, to later editions adapted to specifically Russian circumstances. Chapter 2, Divination in Russian traditional culture, analyzes divination as an important social function in traditional rural communities and traces paths it took into modem society. Wigzell distinguishes two types of rural divination: calendrical (Yuletide and alike) and noncalendrical (such as predictions about a new baby's future or dream interpretations). Calendrical divination was first to suffer in urban context and became reduced to harmless fun (p. 53). In contrast, non-calendrical divination found easier ways into urban life, but its village forms were rapidly replaced by books (p. 53). As a result, Russian [o]ral divinatory tradition and therefore lived largely separate lives (p. 56). In chapter 3, Readers and detractors, Wigzell investigates by class and social groups readership of and points out that social attitudes towards divinatory guides evolved in Russia along same lines as in Western Europe but in a more compressed form. While, at beginning, gained some popularity as entertainment among Russian nobility, by 1820s they had mostly lost their respectability among intellectual elite and became field of other literate and semi-literate social groups (p. 86). The impact of changing readership upon publishing of is subjected to analysis in chapter 4, Printers and publishers. Showing emergence of commercial publishing industry in Russia at end of eighteenth century, Wigzell convincingly proves more active role of Moscow publishing houses in fortune-book printing in contrast to general domination of St. Petersburg in overall totals for book production and distribution. Finally, she presents history of different publishing houses and publishers in Moscow and St. Petersburg up to beginning of twentieth century. The different gender roles in divination are focus of chapters 5, 6, and 7, entitled, respectively, Women, men and domestic Fortune-tellers and their clientele, and Sages and prophets. Wigzell states that domestic and professional was considered to be mainly women's sphere, which very fact was viewed as reflection of their ignorance and irrationality. …