Episode 8: Shriekers, Demons, and Witches. The Tale of Vasilisa Alekseeva

Episode 8 April 16, 2021 00:24:44
Episode 8: Shriekers, Demons, and Witches. The Tale of Vasilisa Alekseeva
Tales from Imperial Russia
Episode 8: Shriekers, Demons, and Witches. The Tale of Vasilisa Alekseeva

Apr 16 2021 | 00:24:44

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Show Notes

In the 1890s, the tiny village of Ashchepkovo in western Russia was struck by an epidemic of demonic possession. This episode attempts to understand this and other cases of malign spells by entering the mystical and magical world of the Russian peasantry.

Sources: C. Worobec, Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Illinois University Press, 2003)

V. Kivelson, Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013)

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