Witchcraft and Politics in Muscovy and the Hetmanate

Abstract

This chapter analyzes witchcraft and politics in Muscovy and the Hetmanate. Politics at the early modern Russian (or Muscovite) court was very much focused on personal connections of kinship, marriage, and patronage, so the choice of brides for the rulers was of utmost political importance. Witchcraft, or rumors of witchcraft, frequently arose in connection with royal marriages. Witchcraft charges also arose when competition among rival factions at court grew particularly fierce, as during the minorities of rulers, when members of the inner circle jockeyed for position, or when a ruler was selecting his royal bride. While it is true that in many instances witchcraft charges were combined with suspicions of high treason or lese majesty — that is, attacks on the ruler, his family, or his dignity — far from all Russian witchcraft trials or anxieties can be described as “political” in any conventional sense of the word. Instead of stressing the political essence of witchcraft, one could emphasize the personal, familial, or even emotional aspects of political life that emerge from the language and sites of anxiety evident in these texts. Witchcraft thus provides a lens through which to rethink the very nature of politics.