Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine 1000–1900: A Sourcebook ed. by Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec

Abstract

Reviewed by: Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine 1000–1900: A Sourcebook ed. by Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec Robert Collis Kivelson, Valerie A. and Worobec, Christine D. (eds). Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine 1000–1900: A Sourcebook. NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Northern Illinois University Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2020. xxx + 506 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Timeline. Notes. Index. $125.00; $32.95; $21.99 (e-book). In 2004, Brian P. Levack published The Witchcraft Sourcebook (New York and London, 2004). This edited volume of primary source material featured an impressively broad collection of material from antiquity to the eighteenth century. It is an immensely valuable sourcebook that can be utilized extensively for university courses that tackle aspects related to the impact of witchcraft in history. Yet even a cursory glance at the Table of Contents of this work reveals that it is overwhelmingly a sourcebook of witchcraft in Western Europe. Besides two entries from 1692 from the American colonies (Cotton Mather on the apocalypse and witchcraft and the Salem Witchcraft trials), the only entry on witchcraft in Eastern Europe relates to ‘A Russian Witch-Trial at Lukh, 1657’. This entry owed much to the scholarship of Valerie Kivelson, who edited and translated the document for inclusion in Levack’s sourcebook. Sixteen years after the publication of Levack’s collection, Kivelson and Christine Worobec have succeeded in editing a similarly impressive broad [End Page 375] collection of documents that spans nine centuries related to witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine. Indeed, their collection runs to 506 pages (some 150 pages longer than Levack’s sourcebook) and includes a wealth of archival material that has never been published in any language. Inspired by Levack’s template, Kivelson and Worobec have put together a truly astounding piece of scholarship that will be of great service to scholars and students throughout the world wishing to know more about the prevalence and special characteristics of witchcraft in the Eastern Slavic realms of Russia and Ukraine. The collaboration between Kivelson and Worobec brings together the combined knowledge and expertise of the foremost scholars of our generation on witchcraft in the East Slavic lands. Russell Zguta opened the door to this field of study in the 1970s, with a series of excellent articles on the topic of witchcraft in the East Slavic world. But with the publication of this sourcebook Kivelson and Worobec lead us into a permanent exhibition space for us to appreciate the richness of the subject matter. The editors have been ably assisted in their formidable undertaking by the generous contributions of leading Russian and Ukrainian scholars in the field, whose efforts are acknowledged throughout the book. The initial impetus for this collaborative effort came in 2010, when Aleksandr Lavrov, a Russian scholar based in Paris, convened a seminar in the French capital. Besides Kivelson and Worobec, the seminar was also attended by the Russian scholar Elena B. Smilianskaia and the Ukrainian scholar Katernya Dysa. In the intervening decade both Lavrov and Smilianskaia made available unpublished Russian archival sources to the editors, which help to considerably widen our knowledge on the nuanced role of witchcraft within Russian society — from peasant practices to the nobility. Moreover, Dysa, who recently published Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials (Budapest, 2020), supplied a series of fascinating unpublished archival documents related to the Hetmanate and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (as well as translating the sources from Polish into English). The inclusion of a plethora of previously unpublished sources from what is now Ukraine allows readers to compare and contrast the differences in how witchcraft was practised and prosecuted in this region and in Muscovy/Russia. The editors’ introduction to the sourcebook immediately makes clear that the publication is intended to fill a notable lacuna in the study of non-Western practices (and reactions to) witchcraft. The sheer amount of source material contained in Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine could have potentially been overwhelming, particularly for a non-expert reader, without careful editorial oversight. Here Kivelson and Worobec again succeed with aplomb. The work is divided into two parts: the first focuses on the historical evolution, law and the prosecution...