Russian Folk Belief

by Linda J. Ivanits

A scholarly work that aims to be both broad enough in scope to satisfy upper-division undergraduates studying folk belief and narrative and detailed enough to meet the needs of graduate students in the field. Each of the seven chapters in Part 1 focuses on one aspect of Russian folk belief, such as the pagan background, Christian personages, devils and various other logical categories of the topic. The author's thesis - that Russian folk belief represents a "double faith" whereby Slavic pagan beliefs are overlaid with popular Christianity - is persuasive and has analogies in other cultures. The folk narratives constituting Part 2 are translated and include a wide range of tales, from the briefly anecdotal to the more fully developed narrative, covering the various folk personages and motifs explored in Part 1.

Genres: Russia, Nonfiction, History, Folklore, Religion, Mythology, Russian Literature

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became interested in this topic through reading Katherine Arden's Winternight series, and saw that she had listed this book as a good place to get more information about the folk beliefs present in the novels. Lo and behold, I found a cheap copy at a used bookstore this year! Obviously, this is not a book to pick up and read unless you have an interest in the topic, but with an interest I found it fascinating. It's especially interesting to see how Christianity formed and changed many of the pagan beliefs over time. Now I'm ready for book 3 of Winternight!

[Bubba · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of the historical Russian peasant's belief in the supernatural. It gives a rundown of the various spirits that they expected to eoncounter in daily life--domovoi (house spirits), leshii (forest spirits), vodianoi (water spirits), as well as spirits in the fields, etc. It also shows the evolution of these beliefs under the influence of Christianity, and how the prievious mischevious/semi-benevolent activities of the domovoi, for example, sometimes became equated with the work of Satan over time. There are also good chapters on sorcerors, witches and the devil. The first half of the book is an analysis of these phenomena, and the second half contains the actual collected folk narratives--some of which, in my opinion, rank up there with Washington Irving and the Arabian Nights. While not a manual on the practical application of folklorist theory, it makes plenty of references as to how a folklorist goes about his business.

The coolest chapter, probably, is that on sorcerors. I enjoy the fact that in some instances they would purposely be invited to weddings and given a seat in the place of honor, so as to prevent offending them and their consequent "spoiling" the newlyweds. Basically I learned that, if you were a Russian peasant, you didn't want to swim, go in the forest, mess with your domovoi--which could include buying a horse of a color the spirit didn't like--upset a witch or sorceror, etc. (Though, there are plenty of tales of clever pesants hoodwinking the devil and others). Also, you need to get your kids baptized! If not, and they die, their spirit may be coming back for a scary visit. And...if things are going bad in the village, it doesn't hurt to dig up a dead sorceror and drive an aspen stake between his shoulder blades...

[Natacha Pavlov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text offers a brief overview of the bulk of Russian folk beliefs. I found it at once interesting, funny and bizarre, and sometimes even logical—especially when compared to spiritual texts I’ve read.
What’s baffling is whether some of these stories actually happened, and the more harrowing ones are a sad reminder of what can happen when people take things very literally or just act based strictly on their limited knowledge. :/
Since this is a scholarly read, the text is heavily footnoted and though I liked to read the notes, it could at times get annoying to constantly break my reading flow (with that said; I soon found that most footnotes are about Russian books so that I eventually skipped most of these).
Overall a helpful read that can serve as additional insight on Russian fairy tales.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ivanits renders memorates, fabulates, and legends in part two of her work to exemplify her analysis of folkloristics in the first part. Many of the stories are interesting and give a glimpse into the peasants' folk beliefs and superstitions, but Ivanits often elevates folk lore above the theology and spirituality inherently flowing through the Russian peasants. Even though the concept of dvoeverie (double-faith) is introduced, it seems during her analysis as if Ivanits wishes to emphasize pagan rituals at the cost of Christianity. This renders dvoeverie as some sort of lopsided theory in favor of paganism rather than a balance.

[J.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't understand some reviewers' complaints that the book is too dry - it's an ACADEMIC book directed at beginning students of Russian folklore! If you want stories, just stories, read Afanasev. I learned a lot from this volume, and the stories in the back are verbatim translations of stories recorded by Russian ethnographers. Ethnographers and folklorists do not embellish the stories they collect, it's against the rules!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ivanits provides an excellent introduction the the basic belief system of pre-Christian and early Christian period Eastern Slavs. This volume is perfect for helping to understand Russian tales and legends, but the serious folklorist will want more detail and substance.

[Sarah Grider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by one of my favorite authors Katherine Arden. I learned so much from this book! So many fun folk stories. I enjoyed how the first half was a more scholarly look at the origin of folk stories and interplay with stories from Christianity.

[heptagrammaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkably broad, Ivanits's Russian Folk Belief introduces the main figures and motivs of Russian folklore, devils through domovoi Interactions with and the (often only shallowly permeating) influence of Orthodox Christian beliefs in addition to continuities of pagan practice/belief are wildly discussed. In the process Ivanits provides an overview of the range of differing scholarly opinions (at least as they stood at point in time of the book's publication, which I assume is still plenty as long as you are not actively engaging in folklore studies - and if you are, you should be better judge than me where to go from here.)

Some general takeaways: through the centuries nature/house spirits were increasingly conceived as malevolent and hellish, with physical characteristics ascribed to devils being transferred onto them through association; serious belief and first-hand accounts of the supernatural near diassappeared by the turn of the 20th century; pagan deities often survive in fragments in Christian saints, saint's days and their place in the agricultural calendar being determinative towards import .

The analytic portion of the text also serves well as a reading guide to the quite varied selection of folk narratives, encouraging pattern recognition. As for the latter: in their most entertaining moments, the texts can be picturesquely absurd and countryside endearing. Sympathy with the peasant headspace, I feel, was aided by the plain prose choices in translation.

[Olesya Gilmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent survey of Russian paganism, concise yet detailed, including pagan gods, spirits in the home and in nature, and, of course, sorcery. The second part includes a compilation of legends and stories of such experiences orally passed down from generation to generation until the beginning of the 20th century.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great introductory text on Russian Folk Belief that's easily broken up into easily-read chapters. A good source for anyone wanting to delve deeper.

[Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to say this is one of the most interesting books I have read on Russia in a number of years. This was not a topic I was ever exposed to in school and wish that we could have skipped one lecture on either serfdom or pre-Bolshevik radical movements to discuss how most Russians have and still do view the world.

If there are any pagan tales, similar to Hesiod or Homer, they were obliterated by Christianity. The belief systems were incorporated into a dualistic approach to spiritual traditions. Some of the gods morphed into saints, other aspects became demons or at best unreliable spirits.

The world of most Russians for centuries (Christianity may have been officially embraced by Russia in 988, it may have been as late as 1400 for Orthodoxy to have penetrated the world of the village).

The world of the Russian peasant was one in which he and his kind were at risk from all manner of forces, not just enemy armies, but devils, sorcerers, spirits of the home (domovoi), and nature spirits of the field, the forest, and the water. This re-enforced a world view that was essentially dangerous and which required strong defenses both temporal and spiritual. This more likely than not contributes to the way Russians view the world. In addition to numerous invasions, harsh climate, there are also forces attempting to spoil whatever the Russian peasants attempt to create.

Other aspects of this body of folk belief have echoed down the centuries, I really want to reread Devils by Dostoyevsky and Master and Margarita after gaining some insights into the way most ordinary Russians have viewed the world. Demons/Devils/Nature spirits as forces beyond the pale of ordinary village life are inclined to be destructive and are difficult to appease. This very much is their world.

The incidents of “spoiling” similarly resonated. During the Stalin period, industrial failures were frequently ascribed to sabotage and wrecking. How much easier is it to convince a nation of this (as opposed to sheer incompetence) if there is a vast body of folklore that presents a view of this sort of activity as something that habitually occurs by the various spirits that are constantly being unmasked as either tools of the devil or malicious elements who are embracing a life of evil.

In addition to analysis of the folk traditions, there are chapters of short folk stories that the author has incorporated. These again underscore the worldview of the Russian peasant, whose mindset remains a factor to this very day.

[when-cows-fly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of Russian folk belief is very interesting, given its dual nature. On the one hand, you have the roots of Slavic paganism, and on the other is the Christianization of Russia during the early 11th century. The result is an odd mix of beliefs that are truly unique and none too concerned with representing church-accurate theology. The result is an unrestrained explosion of creative story telling. Their depiction of nature spirits lights the imagination, and a more pantheistic view of witches and sorcerers refreshes the stereotype of the medieval magic user set in place by the likes of the Salem witch trials. It is filled to the brim with striking images: portentous crossroads, the omnipresent figure of moist mother earth, the anti-chthonic crow of the rooster, flesh-eating undead, mischievous devils, beautiful water spirits, and an abundance of music.... The Russian "imagination" is as vibrant, grim, and thought-provoking as the works of the literary agents to which it gave birth.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of history, literature, folklore, and the supernatural, I picked up this book thinking I would learn a little more about Baba Yaga and the rusalka, while getting enough information to understand certain Russian authors’ references should I attempt to read any of their books ever again. Instead, this book offers so much more information about the mindset of the Russian peasants and their beliefs up through the 20th century and a little beyond, while demonstrating the peasant’s ‘double faith’ with the introduction of (and blending with) Orthodox Christianity. The conversion of practical feast days into saint’s days provides insight into the Russian peasant’s life during the yearly agricultural cycle. Sadly, Baga Yaga only makes the briefest of appearances as majority of the first half of this book explains the concepts of how different spirits and sorcerers survived the conversion to a synchronistic type of Christianity, becoming saints or devils and witches, or something in between. The second half of this book recounts the folk narratives that introduce more ideas or expand on the brief stories given throughout the first half’s explanations. It’s a very readable scholarly book for anyone with an interest in folklore, syncretism, and social history.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good overview, especially for people who don't have access to Russian. I read it in order to find names of Russian folklorists who developed frameworks of Russian folklore. It's disappointing that there was no equivalent of Ovid, or the Norse epics for Slavic mythology, and that all we have are guesses based on the writings of priests complaining of peasant rituals. It's a very quick read, and has some translated peasant accounts of encounters with various beings/spirits at the end, that was quite fun to read.

If you enjoy this, I recommend the "Other Worlds" collection of Teffi stories (she was Russian and after leaving around the time of the revolution, spent a lot of time writing stories about Russia) this collection is full of stories about various figures, like domovois, rusalki, bathhouse spirits, witches etc. (Full disclosure, I translated a story for the collection).

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book on the recommendation of the author of two books I love, The Bear and The Nightingale and The Girl in The Tower (the first two in the Winternight Trilogy). In reading the author's remarks at the end of the second book, I saw that she referenced this academic work to inform and enhance her writing of various spiritual creatures of Russian folk lore. These mythical creatures (the domovoi, the rusalka, the upya, the chert, and various others) appear in her books.

While it was a struggle to get through this book (written for graduate students studying the Russian peasant's pagan and pre-Christian belief systems), I got enough out of it to make it worthwhile. It was quite dry and academic, but I feel that what I did learn from this book has helped me understand and connect more with the overall story in the Winternight series.

[Henry Malin]

I finished this a while ago and it was pretty good. I didn't read the collected stories in the back, because it seemed like they were chosen based on more scholarly merit than things people would actually want to read. The nonfiction part was good, though, it was concise and spanned the folk belief spectrum. The section on mythology was not nearly as much of a chore to get through as those usually are, though there is inevitably a lot of god/demigod name-dropping. Read it if you're interested in the topic.

[Tiffany Hickox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book of Russian Folk Tales, but an examination of the traditional pagan beliefs held by Russian peasants and the effect Christianity has had on these beliefs through the centuries. Very informative.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting read for those who need to understand old Russian folk beliefs. Ivanits writes in-depth using history and context as aids, and reinforces this understanding by supplementing the last half of the book with tales of people from different provinces.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and informational book on what we actually know about Russian Folk belief.

[Maisie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Danielle]

We read a few chapters from this for my Russian Fairy Tales class and Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture class. It's pretty interesting.

[Athena of Velaris]

An interesting introduction to Ivanits's theory of double faith in Russia in the 19th century.

[victor chin]

Domovoi...

[Winnie Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a Slavic folklore class. The book manages to explain the relatively complicated "double faith" aspect of Russian folk belief clearly. It paints the various minor spirits (such as the domovoi and the rusalka) quite well, though the major gods are a bit confusing to read about (mainly because not much is known about them). The collection of quasi-personal narratives at the end consist of religious creation stories, stories of saints and devils, and accounts of minor spirit encounters, which were pretty fun to read. It may be even more fun for the reader to examine Russian folktales and epics as well and compare with these narratives. I would say the highlight chapters of the book are the sections on Russian sorcerers and the quasi-personal narratives of minor spirits.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great. Why did I read it? Who knows? Russian folk beliefs are weird and cool and insufficiently documented in English, because they died out pretty precipitously with the whole destroying peasant life thing. I didn't read the primary sources in the second half but the first half does a nice job of covering a lot of superstitions, your domovoi-type figures, how to become a witch, Perun, how to spot malevolent spirits by looking at them from between your legs upsidedown, in-the-bathhouse-at-midnight-type foibles and more in a highly readable way.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating this one because I got into a conversation yesterday that reminded me of it. Terrific overview of Russian mythology.

[Cecelia]

Too dry, too didactic, more interesting if told stories instead of, ineffect, cataloguing them

[Megan RFA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, if a bit dry. Makes me want to read related books.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent look into Mythological belief and the merge of Christianity within Russia.