Moscow: Lomonosov Publ., 2016, 384 p.

Elena Borisovna Smilyanskaya's monograph, published by the Lomonosov Publishing House in 2016, is an expanded and expanded edition of her previous book1. As the author notes in the preface, the second edition of the book takes into account the latest publications on the topic. At the same time, the 2016 edition, unfortunately, has lost the most valuable scientific appendices - the list of archival documents from 1700-1801 "on magic, blasphemy, blasphemy, heresies and "superstition" (30 pages), the list of references and sources (60 pages) and the alphabetical index. Page-by-page footnotes were replaced with endnotes with solid numbering, and each odd-numbered page was supplemented with illustrations in the margins. All this significantly complicated the work with the text, but did not overshadow its content.

The book is devoted to the religiosity of the Orthodox inhabitants of Russia in the XVIII century, and it is studied strictly according to judicial and investigative documents containing information about the "spiritual crimes" of that time.

The sources are materials of the Preobrazhensky Order, the Secret Chancellery, the Secret Expedition (F. 7), the Senate (F. 248), the Preobrazhensky Order (F. 371), the Detective Order (F. 372), the Moscow Office of the Synod (F. 1183), documents of the Cabinet of Peter I (F. 9), the Cabinet of Catherine (F. 1018), stored in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA); the Synod archive (F. 796), in the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA); as well as investigative documents of regional archives - the state archives of the Vologda, Kursk, Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Tver, Tyumen and Yaroslavl regions.

The archival materials collected by the researcher were divided into three large sections: "Magicians", "Blasphemers and blasphemers", "Heretics". Each of the three parts of the book is preceded by a good historiography.

1. Smilyanskaya E. B. Magicians. Blasphemers. Heretics. Narodnaya religiosity and "spiritual crimes" in Russia of the XVIII century. Moscow: Indrik, 2003.

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The first part of the book is devoted to the study of "magical beliefs" as a living reality not only of the Middle Ages, but also of Modern European culture. Moreover, as the author shows, the beliefs of this type were characteristic not only of the grassroots, folk culture, the culture of" simpletons", but also of the high culture of enlightened citizens (including those who participated in the creation of the laws of the Russian Empire). Individual cases are also collected here - for example, the history of Pyotr Saltykov (c. 1724-after 1796), the history of Katerina Ivanova (1764), and others.

Each such story contains not only a description of historical materials, quotations from sources adapted for the reader, and the author's conclusions, but also - in the margins-rather voluminous reconstructions of fragments of the internal and external world of people of the XVIII century. For example, in the first part of the book, we are met with a story about foals - a magical tool for prediction. "Fortune-telling by lots," the author writes, " is considered one of the simplest methods of prediction, often requiring neither reference to predictive book texts, nor complex "tools". Zzherebeyki, cut from bread, could be replaced with wooden ones, instead of foals" bred " with prune bones, as well as beans or even radish slices. Sometimes, in the most crucial situations of life, they cast lots even simpler - from two splinters: This is how the serf girls Yefimya and Matryona "conjured luchina", who could not share their beloved domestic Andrey " (pp. 51-52). Before us is an almost museum exhibit, recreated verbally, and due to the author's masterful possession of the word, it has received volume and depth.

Elsewhere, the author cites the Breviary of 1720, which attributed to the clergy to excommunicate sorcerers from communion for 20 years, and those who wear amulets, magically protect cattle or send damage - for 6 years. "Listen to me, my child: did you not perform sorcery, or cast wax or tin as a sorcerer, did you not bring a magus into your house and produce enchantments, or did you do this yourself; or did you create sorcery to harm someone; did you not surpass the animal, so that the wolf would not eat it, <...> hast thou not prezyazali husband and wife, or another prezyazaniye of infirmity, whether you do not wear a protective bylia... "(p. 96). This fragment of the Breviary can also act as a peculiar one

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a guide for novice sorcerers.

In another fragment, already in the third chapter, we learn that " the cross acquired a special place in the magical rite, without losing its semantic meaning-evidence of the individual's belonging to Christianity."

"To the cross," Smilyanskaya writes, "magical means were usually "tied" - wax, a root, assuming to strengthen their effect in this way "(p. 99), "wax stuck to the cross was one of the most common amulets against the "evil eye" or a talisman for gaining mercy " (p. 99); they also slandered the cross for good luck.

On the pages of the book, not only objects come to life, but also people - peasants, nobles, priests, military men, townspeople. We learn their dialect, names and nicknames, see how and in what they believed, how they prayed, we know how much they paid for magical services: at the beginning of the XVIII century, "nagovorny roots for spoiling the landowner" cost fifty rubles, charmed salt - 4 kopecks," nagovorny "wax - 10 kopecks, treatment" with slander" at the village sorcerer - 1 kopeck per session, but sometimes treated "for a glass of wine", for "a cap and a cap" and even for free. "In favor of the fact that magic in the XVIII century turns out to be a lucrative fraud, " Smilyanskaya writes, "it would seem that the fact that the sorcerer is increasingly being sought on the market and that his services are sometimes valued at a significant amount" (pp. 89-90).

Speaking about the role of magic among the bearers of Christian culture, it is difficult to avoid talking about "dual faith", but Elena Borisovna suggests a different approach to the problem. "The magical and the Christian," she writes, " even without coming into conflict, often complemented each other in the religious life of an Orthodox person of the XVIII century. If Christian prayers, pilgrimages, or appeals to a priest did not help to fulfill the desired goal, it was not difficult for the sufferer to turn to magical words, talismans, or the help of a wizard; and, on the contrary, the performance of a magical ritual did not prevent many from remaining in the bosom of the Church" (p.101).

Smilyanskaya describes the features of the "folk faith", the main of which she considers the lack of systematic, organic integrity of religious ideas.

"A peculiar interweaving of magical, pagan beliefs-

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In her opinion, the concept of Christianity and Christianity, which is contradictory in its essence, often turns out to be stable and leaves its mark on the basic ideas of good and evil, the power of God and Satan, and the relationship between the earthly and the otherworldly" (pp. 282-283).

"The documents of investigative cases on magic show how in the religious views of all participants in the trials - the accused, witnesses, investigators and judges - in an indissoluble unity, "opposite systems" - religion and magic, Christian feeling and "magic superstition" - were united," the author writes in another place (p.94).

The undoubted advantage of the author is his excellent knowledge not only of historiography and materials from Russian archives, but also of the Western European context. The book provides examples of typical testimonies of convicts preserved in the materials of Western European "witchcraft trials" of the late XV-late XVII centuries. The author identifies the following "plot nodes": meeting the devil, physically and spiritually transferring oneself to the devil, traveling to the sabbath magically, praying to the devil at the sabbath, returning home in a supernatural way, committing crimes against people, their property, community or religion with the help of the devil. "Such uniformity of stories obtained in different parts of Europe over two centuries," Smilyanskaya writes, "suggests to researchers that the logical scheme of "high theology" prevailed during the investigation, forcing judges to beat out the necessary evidence, impose their own logic of explaining the sequence and connection of events " 2 (p.65).

But here it is important not only to analyze foreign materials, but also to draw conclusions about the place of Russia among other European states : much of what we see in Europe in the XV-XVII centuries allows us to understand the processes taking place in Russia in the first half of the XVIII century.

So, in the first part of the book, the case of young peasant women of the Yaroslavl province, klikush, is given, who in 1764 shouted out during the battle of the city of Yaroslavl.-

2. The influence of investigative rhetoric on the testimony of prisoners can also be seen in Russian material, for example, in the interrogations of the Hristoverovs in 1733. For more information, see Sergazina K. T. "Walking around": ritual practice of the first communities of Christ Believers, Moscow-St. Petersburg, 2017, pp. 113-130. See also my article in this issue.

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stupov is the name of his neighbor Katerina Ivanova, who allegedly "ruined" them. The klikush relatives not only beat Katerina, but also handed her over to the provincial chancellery, where she described in detail how "when she received grass, she called two devils to her and sent them to the Moloksha River to carry stones" and how "having moved that grass in the water with her finger, she gave that water to drink [to the klikushs], and the grass, from having taken out the water, she put it in the jar in the crack" and that "she did that damage because of her anger shown in the interrogation" (p. 66). Katerina Ivanova's interrogation is fully described in the book on pages 67-73.

"The case of Katerina Ivanova," Smilyanskaya writes, "surprisingly coincides with the accusations of witchcraft of English women described in the Western European historical and anthropological literature in the XVI-XVII centuries" (p. 67).

Analyzing the Russian witchcraft processes, Smilyanskaya suggests identifying here also some peculiar acts of "ritual drama": prologue ("a person's awareness that help in his trouble cannot be obtained by legal means"); the beginning of the story ("meeting with a wizard" - the search for a sorcerer and a mediator); the culmination of the drama ("when, usually in private, the sorcerer made the transformation of salt, wax, dry grass or water (less often-other) into a magical object with a given magical power"); denouement (luck or failure, but more often suspicion of others, rumors, denunciations, arrests, torture). Moreover, the text of a spell or incantation itself should be considered "not only as a demonic language that is understandable primarily to otherworldly forces invoked or exorcised in a ritual action, but also as a kind of narrative that carries information about the supernatural" (p.109).

Data on the number and dynamics of witchcraft processes in the 18th century are interesting: the archival material reviewed by E. B. Smilyanskaya allows her to confidently talk about 23 processes in the 1700s and 1720s, 80 processes in 1721-1740, 97 processes in 1741-1760, 22 processes in 1761-1780, and 18 processes in the 19th century. 1781-1801. We see that the peak is in Elizabethan times.

The second part of the book deals with the profanation of the sacred (as the reverse side of the form of veneration of the sacred - p. 204) - about the non-veneration and punishment of saints and shrines, about blasphemous and pseudo-

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blasphemous acts, that is, what is commonly called blasphemy.

Analyzing extensive archival material, Smilyanskaya reviews the tradition of Soviet historiography and writes:: "It is hardly possible to agree with the conclusions expressed by Soviet researchers of the 1950s and 1960s that investigative cases of desecration of saints and shrines indicate an indifferent and directly negative attitude to religion, the emergence of atheism in Russia.

<...> The overwhelming majority of the Russian "blasphemers" known to us were not distinguished by anti-church and anti-Orthodox beliefs, and some were even reputed to be exemplary parishioners" (p. 181).

Based on 133 cases of "blasphemy", E. B. Smilyanskaya comes to the conclusion that in Russia of the XVIII century, most of the crimes of blasphemers "consisted of drunken swearing or swearing in a state of passion, when references to saints, the church, the cross, the Most High, the Mother of God were included in the abusive speech" (p.178). This includes reservations about worship services, vandalism, theft of icons, and criticism of church singing or service.

"Our materials on blasphemous abuse of the saints and the Almighty," the author writes, "to a certain extent confirm the judgments expressed in the literature about the absence of a spiritualized and reverent attitude towards saints and shrines in everyday consciousness. < ... > Taking the sacred out of the boundaries of the "pure" space (prayer text, book text, temple space) However, the use of sacred images "in vain" leads to their "simplification" and coarsening, and then in this "grassroots" sphere, the sacred turns into its opposites: "ridiculous" or blasphemous," corporeal "or" black", demonic " (pp. 189-190).

The third part of the book is devoted to religious freethinking, dissent, as a reaction "to popular religiosity, to the popular veneration of Christian shrines, which replaced the cults of pagan idols and amulets in the medieval mass consciousness." "The significance of the eighteenth - century reformation freethinking for Russian history," Smilyanskaya writes, " is explained not so much by the number of its adherents. "Heretics" tried to comprehend the content of Christian dogma, including through the rejection of external rituals

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in favor of the search for "spirit and truth", and, obviously, there were more of them than can be judged from the news about the open opposition of the church...> It is also obvious that despite the small number of Russian "iconoclasts"- "heretics" - the supreme power (both ecclesiastical and secular) was not inclined to show tolerance to its subjects infected with reformation criticism in order to please Westernism: Western non-believers were tolerated and invited, while their own were punished and tortured physically and spiritually " (pp. 279-280).

Despite all the depth of concepts and consistency of presentation of historical material, mainly archival, the book of E. B. Smilyanskaya can be interesting not only for historians, philologists, anthropologists and religious scholars, but also for anyone interested in Russian history. And even, perhaps, to those who want to find a practical application of the magic recipes described in the book.

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