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Aleksandr Panchenko

"Strange faith" and the blood libel

These notes are based upon my studies of folklore, rituals and ideology of two Russian popular religious movements of 18th — 19th centuries: Khristovschina ("the Christ’s faith", known also as "the sect of Khlysty") and Scopchestvo ("the Castrates"). Although there has been written a lot about both sects, their religious practices have actually never been the subject of anthropological analysis. Meanwhile, both fundamental works by scholars of religion and popular essays on Khristovschina and Scopchestvo abound in various fantasies and legends. The exoteric legendary context of the history of Russian mystical sectarianism seems to be of special interest for researchers studying the problems of confessionalisation and construction of religious identities in post-Petrine Russia along with semiotics and typology of social legend in medieval and modern Europe.

In 1733—1739 and 1745—1756, two commissions were in session at Moscow. Their task was investigation of "the Quakers heresy" — the name given by authorities to Khristovschina which had spread widely in Moscow region and on the Middle Volga. The activities of the second commission were notable for extreme cruelty, numerous abuses, and illegal treatment of prisoners. One of the 19th century researchers remarks in this connection: "The distinguishing feature of the commission’s activity is extreme cruelty of secular court. In 1747, tortures were used nearly every day, and the commission suggested that it was necessary to have two executioners at its permanent disposal..." (Nechaev 1889, 103). While the first commission had mainly limited itself by flogging during interrogations and confrontations, the majority of testimonies, recorded by the second one, was received after hanging on dyba or "fire-burning".

The materials of this trial have for the first time displayed the motif to be associated with the followers of Khristovschina for the next 150 years. I mean accusations of group sexual intercourse (svalnyi grekh) and ritual sacrifice of infants. The scholars of the last century usually took the accusations for granted. A modern author, A. Etkind, supposes, on the contrary, that "the very court, according to trial data, seems to believe not in this version" (Etkind 1996, 32; 1998, 138). As to the historical truth, the accusations, indeed, can not stand any consequent criticism. However, Etkind is mistaken concerning the position of the court. It seems that just the latter (i. e. the second commission) has inspired the corresponding testimonies of the sectarians. Comparison of the interrogation records allows to suggest that the story of ritual infanticide had been composed by the judges themselves and then was offered to the accused (Nechaev 1889, 180).

The analysis of these testimonies (Nechaev 1889, 180—199; Reutsky 1872, 35—37; Pelikan 1872, 152—162) allows to single out the following motifs of ritual murder legend as applied to Russian mystical sectarians:

While rejecting marriage, the sectarians’ leaders encourage free sexual interrelations which are called "love" and take place after the sectarians’ gatherings.

Infants, being concepted during the "love", are intended to ritual sacrifice.

The infants intended to sacrifice are baptised according to special ritual.

The baptised infant is slaughtered, his heart is cut out, and his blood is collected.

The heart, dried and pound, is mixed with meal in order to bake breads; the blood is mixed with water or kvass.

These breads and water are distributed during the gatherings instead of communion.

The immediate reason for this particular set of motifs was the special appearance of Khristovschina rituals which included technique of ecstasy, based upon consistent repetition of the Jesus prayer, and specific form of communion obviously connected with the Old Believers — bespopovtsy tradition. Both could be explained by the tendency to peculiar ritual creativity, having been characteristic for popular eschatological movements of 17th century. However, the specific features of Khristovschina ritual do not constitute any solid ground for the accusations of free sexual intercourse and ritual infanticide. It is probably, that involuntary causers of the accusations were two eminent church figures of the late 17th century: Ignatii (Rimskii-Korsakov), the metropolitan of Tobol’sk, and St. Dimitrii Rostovskii. In his third message (1692), Ignatii has told a story about a certain schismatic who had lived in woods between Vologda and Kargopol’. The story could be recorded by Ignatii in 1687 near Kostroma and Kineshma where the future metropolitan had been sent "for admonishing the schismatics".¹ According to Ignatii, this "seeming saint" was famous among the nearby peasants for his monastic life and attracted a lot of followers of both sexes. However, he was actually "magician and sorcerer", he taught everybody "to live in lechery without a shame", and rejected marriage.

Once a man from Vologda comes to the teacher. He is burdened by sins and wants to be saved through ascetic life. At first, he is locked in a cell and prescribed to bear severe lent and prayer discipline. Not long after, the neophyte understands that the teacher’s cell is behind the wall. He can not refrain his curiosity and began to spy upon the neighbouring room. Then a terrible scene opens before his look. Two men come to the teacher and tell that a girl living in the monastery has born a male infant. The teacher answers: "Have not I told you, that when the girl would born a baby, you should cut out his heart and bring it to me?" After a time, they bring the infant’s heart still beating; the teacher cuts it into four parts and orders to pound them after drying. Then, he himself wraps the meal got in papers and gives it to his disciples who are to preach "at towns and villages" two-fingered cross and refusal of church rituals. Along with it, they have to put the meal "into food or water, being in a house, or into wells". Those who taste this food or drink should turn their mind to the Old Belief and should become "voluntary martyrs", i. e. self-burners.

The curious neophyte from Vologda is horrified by what he has seen. He escapes from the monastery with the help of ruse. The teacher understands that his secret is disclosed and, in his turn, leaves for Paleostrovskii monastery. The authorities send there emissaries with admonition, but the schismatics lock in the monastery and burn themselves (Ignatii 1855, 116—123).

Ignatii’s third message was used by Dimitrii Rostovskii while compiling his Rozysk o raskol’nichiei Brynskoi vere ("Investigation of Schismatics’ Brynsk Faith") (1709). He has nearly word for word reproduced the story of the "magician and sorcerer", having added to it certain rumours which he had recorded himself (Dimitrii Rostovskii 1847, 574—579, 586—587, 590—591, 595, 597; cf.: Shliapkin 1891, 449). Thus, his "Investigation" contained almost the full scale of accusations addressed to sectarians by the second commission. It is without a doubt that a lot of its members (especially — of spiritual rank) was acquainted with the text of the "Investigation": it had been considered by the Synod and recommended for publication just in the first half of 1740-s. The publication took place, indeed, in 1745. Since the majority of sectarians’ confessions of orgies and ritual infanticide was recorded in 1747, it is very likely that they were based upon the corresponding parts of the essay by Dimitrii Rostovskii.

The story of ritual murder, recorded by metropolitan Ignatii, has an earlier prototype in Russian tradition. It comes from the early 17th century. In his note about the origin of Khristovschina, V. N. Perets cites the following text, found in a manuscript of this epoch and obviously implying the Cathars of Milan. It describes "mad people" who gathered "in the city of Mediolam to pray devilish prayer at night" and committed orgies.

And since that fall, a child will be concepted by woman or girl, and they will tell to their priest, and he writes down their names and the number of days, and when the infant is born, they bring him to the place where they gather for their unclean prayer and intercourse, and their priests, after setting fire, will burn the infant, shovel up the ashes, and take it as relics. And when they assign a new priest, they give him the ashes in vine, and they join other madmen to their nasty faith by the very ashes...

(Perets 1898, 119—120)

V. N. Perets, having been convinced in trustworthy of the legend about orgies and bloody sacrifice within Khristovschina rituals, considered the text as an evidence of South- and West-European origins of Russian mystical sectarianism. He wrote: "The item and those like it, having been appeared already in the early 17th century, have anticipated the propaganda of sectarian mystical ideas, spoken of by researchers" (Perets 1898, 120). I, on the contrary, think that the discovery of Perets witnesses of the ways the legendary subject, finally associated with Khristovschina followers, migrated by.

This is historical and literary aspect of the legend under consideration. However, it can be assumed that dissemination of its motifs was not limited by exclusively bookish context. Oral reproduction of the story recorded by metropolitan Ignatii is confirmed by specific folklore features of its plot, being close in a way to novelistic tales about robbers (SUS 955 (AT 955) The Robber Bridegroom; SUS 955 B Woman and Robbers). Another witness of oral transmission of the schismatics’ ritual murder story can be found in the materials of 1745—1756 trial. The commission’s case of Alatyr’ peasants has begun due to information by psalomtschik (reader) Ivan Grigor’ev. According to his words, "he has heard from the priest of Mironki village that a girl Aliona had killed her new-born infant and that schismatics had used the infant’s body for communion". However, the priest Ivan Petrov of Mironki who had been immediately taken to the commission, has run away from prison and disappeared without a trace (Nechaev 1889, 136—137).

The next record of the legend about orgies and bloody communion amongst Russian mystical sectarians has appeared only in 1840-s. It was made by baron August Haxthausen who travelled over Russia in 1843 and described his observations of Russian life in a vast monograph. Its first part has been published in Hannover in 1847 (both in German and in French). In a chapter devoted to Russian schism and sectarianism, he, with reference to his secretary — assimilated German chemist, wrote:

At the night before the Easter Skoptcy and Khlysty gather together for great service in honour of the Mother of God. A girl, fifteen years old, being persuaded with tempting promises, is put tied up into a bath with warm water. Old women come in, make an incision on her left breast, then cut off the breast and stop the blood with extraordinary quickness. The breast cut off is divided into small parts which are placed on a dish, and everyone present eats a part; then the girl is taken out from the bath and placed upon an altar staying near-by, and all the members of the sect dance wildly around here singing:

po plasachom

po gorachom

na Sionskaja goru Auf zum Tanzen!

Auf zum Springen!

Nach Sions Bergen!

The dance becomes more wild and furious, then suddenly all the candles are blown out and a nasty orgy begins.

(Haxthausen 1867, 227—229).

The information by Haxthausen is of special interest since the sacrifice of an infant concepted during svalny grekh is replaced by communion through cut off breast of a young girl. It is very likely, that the story by former chemist unites traditional legends of orgies and bloody sacrifice amongst Khristovschina with rumors about ritual amputation of mammila, having been spread among female followers of Scopchestvo in 1820s — 1830s. This operation was equivalent to male castration.

Both the Haxthausen’s information and the story once told by metropolitan Ignatii were used by the later students of Russian mystical sects, V. I. Kelsiev and P. I. Melnikov-Pecherskii. The first of them, in an essay Sviatorusskie dvoevery ("Double-believers of the Holy Rus’"), has published his evidently invented conversation with "goddes Avdotia" supposed to be one of the leaders of Khristovschina and to run from Kurskaya gubernia (district) because of oppression from local authorities. The conversation is pretended to take place "in a certain town on low Danube in 1864" (Kelsiev 1869, 1—30). On behalf of Avdotia, Kelsiev describes, consistently and expressively, "election" of Mother of God, communion by amputated breast, birth of a "little Christ" (khristosik) concepted during an orgy, and bloody sacrifice (according to Kelsiev, it is associated with circumcision) which is also finished by communion: "They have slaughtered him into left side... into the very little heart, — and he has not even cry. They have let out hot blood into a cup — all people have communicated — and the blood was read, and steam went from it" (Kelsiev 1869, 29).

We can assume, that the origin of the story by Kelsiev was not only connected with the bookish sources mentioned. It is probable, that Kelsiev has knew indeed the legend of svalny grekh and bloody sacrifice on the low Danube where he lived in 1860s amongst Cossacks-Nekrasovtsy and Scoptcy. It is also probable that the legend was told him about the Scoptcy, since the term "circumcision" was used. The notion of circumcision played an important role in ideology and "folk exegetics" of Scoptchestvo and could be easily reflected in the legend of sectarians’ bloody sacrifice. It is likely, finally, that Melnikov-Pechersky, who retells, in general, Dimitrii Rostovskii, Haxthausen, and Kelsiev, has also used certain oral sources. He, particularly, refers to the story "of a peasant who was in Khristovschina heresy" (Melnikov 1909, 358—361).

The publications by Haxthausen, Melnikov, Kelsiev along with the works by Reutskii and Pelikan who used the materials of the second trial of the Moscow Khristovschina, have solidly affirmed the legend of orgies and bloody sacrifice amongst Khristovschina and Scoptchestvo both in scholarly literature and fiction of late 19th — early 20th century. Curiously enough, the legend was trusted by European historians and ethnologists too. H. L. Strack, having been the first to unmask the blood accusation of Jews and to study its historical and cultural meaning, assumed the bloody sacrifice to be a part of Russian sectarians’ ritual: "The majority of Khlysty communicate by water and bread only; however, according to a number of testimonies... some of them use meat and blood of a new-born infant, namely, that first-born by a "saint girl", elected to be "the Mother of God" after ecstatic-obscene feast which follows the election". Here Strack also cites Haxthausen (Strack 1995, 34—35). It is obvious that A. van Gennep means also Khristovschina while speaking of "ceremonies of certain Russian sects when men and women have coition voluntarily or accidentally" (Van Gennep 199, 155). Finally, the Russian literature of late 19th — early 20th century has too played a notable role in spread of the legend. Melnikov-Pecherskii (Na gorakh), Merezhkovskii (Petr i Aleksei), Andrei Belyi (Serebrianyi Golub’) can at least be mentioned here.

Thus, the legend of orgies and bloody sacrifice amongst mystical sectarians was reproduced in 18th — 19th centuries Russia in both bookish (scholarly and literary) context and popular oral tradition. Although the first known appearance of the legend in literary tradition was determined by external influence, it could probably emerge independently in peasants’ rumours about different denominations of schismatics. Distribution of similar texts and notions can be demonstrated by contemporary field records: those areas of Nizhnii Novgorod region, where different confessional groups are mixed, are abundant in mutual accusations of sacred uncleanness, orgies, etc. Contemporary legend of dushilova vera ("the strangler faith"), which is usually associated with the Old Believers — bespopovtsy and presumes that the members of confessional groups kill and bury secretly those being seriously ill or too old, is particularly characteristic here. ²

However, as far as I know, contemporary Russian peasants’ legendary does not contain the motif of ritual human sacrifice among sectarians or the Old Believers. In order to understand the origin and functions of the legend in its connection with Khristovschina and Scoptchestvo, we are to analyse it in more broad context. The most known and well studied parallel here is the abovementioned blood libel (known also as "the legend of Jewish ritual murder") which supposes that every year Jews sacrifice a Christian child and use his blood in their rituals. ³ The blood libel legend is connected with various legends about Jews desecrating host and about Jews-poisoners.

Within the history of medieval Europe, the blood libel legend appears for the first time in the Norwich case of 1144 where Jews were accused of such a crime. According to the accusation, they have bought a Christian adolescent William on the eve of the Easter, exposed him to tortures similar to those of Christ, crucified him on Good Friday, and then buried (Trachtenberg 1943, 130; Dundes 1991, 339—340). In the second half of 12th century, such accusations became widespread in England, France, and Spain. During the next four centuries, the legend slowly migrated to the east: through German-speaking lands to the countries of Eastern Europe. Since 1230s — 1240s, Jews were accused not only of ritual murder of Christians but also of using their blood with ritual or magic purposes. The culmination of the blood libel "epidemic" had fallen on 15th — 16th centuries, then the quantity of accusations in the countries of Western and Central Europe began to decrease (the Reformation, probably, was one of the reasons for it). But in Eastern Europe (especially — in Poland), the blood libel became widespread just in 16th — 17th centuries (Hsia 1988, 3). In 18th — 19th centuries the accusations of ritual murder remained mainly in Poland and near the western borderline of the East-Slavonic area (Dahl’ 1995, 402—403).

One of the most famous cases based upon blood libel was investigated in 1255 at Lincoln where fifteen Jews were hanged for allegedly crucifixion of adolescent Hugh. The story constituted the plot for both English popular ballad "Sir Hugh, or, The Jew’s Daughter" and one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (The Prioress’ Tale) (Trachtenberg 1943, 131—132; The Blood Libel Legend 1991, 338—339). Another legend of Jewish ritual murder, being well known to folklorists, is connected with Judenstein near Innsbruk where the local cult of Andreas (Anderl) Oxner of Rinn existed at least since early 17th century. According to the legend, Anderl had been sold to Jewish merchants who martyred him to death on a big flat stone and then hung the body on a birch-tree. The boy’s mother carried his body to the church at Rinn. After a time passed, the stone was brought there too. As to the birch, once a shepherd cut down the tree and attempted to carry it home but broke his leg and died from the injury (Grimm 1956, 331—332 (Nr. 353)). "The Velizh case" of 1823 and the Beilis case (Kiev, 1913) can be mentioned among the most notorious episodes of the blood libel history within Russian Empire.

The explanations of genesis and functions of the legend of ritual murder vary greatly: from pure historical or ethnological to psychoanalytical. S. Roth, for instance, supposes that the first stimulus for spreading of the blood libel was the custom of Purim festival including ritual punishment of Haman’s effigy (Roth 1991, 270). According to H. Strack, the legend of ritual murder and use of Christians’ blood is due in its origin to both medieval notions of special magic and curative force of blood and misunderstanding of various elements of Judaic ritual tradition. At the same time, Strack was one of the first to stress social and historical peculiarities of blood libel by pointing out that it is usually associated with religious (or, less often, social and political) minorities. He reminded that charges with ritual cannibalism and incest or orgies had been brought against early Christians, Montanists, Valdenses, Cathars, etc. (Strack 1995, 221—228). This position is shared by J. Trachtenberg who, besides, mentions projective aspect of the blood libel: "It is not difficult to see how a naive, theology-ridden people could transfer their own beliefs and practice to another: if "the blood of Christ" could redeem Christians, why should not the Jews seek to profit from its peculiar virtue, and if that blood played so prominent part in Christian ritual, why not also in Jewish? — allowing, naturally, for the perverse non-Christian course Jews could be expected to follow?" (Trachtenberg 1943, 154—155).

Projective aspect of the blood libel is paid much attention to in the very psychoanalytical historiography, although the majority of explanations offered by its representatives, in my opinion, seems to be pure fantasies. Th. Reik, for example, considers the legend of ritual murder to be the projection of unconscious feeling of guilt, emerging in Christian culture on the base of Oedipal complex of deicide. "Mankind insofar as it has turned Christian confesses in this legend... the old tendency to deicide" (Reik 1923, 129; cited according to Dundes 1991, 351). According to M. I. Seiden, the blood libel is to be explained through Oedipal model, so far, historically, Judaism gave birth to Christianity and, consequently, Jews are the "fathers" of Christians. The Jew, by Seiden, is "the monstrous father who threatens or destroys the lifes of his innocent primordial children" (Seiden 1967, 78; cited according to Dundes 1991, 351). E. Rappaport, finally, suppose the legend of ritual murder to be a specific projection of Christian doctrine of transubstantiation (Rappaport 1991, 304—335).

Psychoanalytical premises determine also the interpretation by A. Dundes who proceeds from his own theory of "projective inversion". The latter, according to Dundes, "refers to a psychological process in which A accuses B of carrying out an action which A really wishes to carry out himself" (Dundes 1991, 352—353; cf.: Dundes 1980, 33—61). As to the legend of ritual murder, it is a projection, in his opinion, of unconscious Christian guilt feeling caused by the Eucharist. "To incorporate the blood and body of one’s saviour is at the very least symbolic cannibalism. <...> For the commission of an aggressively cannibalistic act, participants in the Eucharist would normally feel guilt... Where is the guilt for such an act displaced? I submit it is projected wholesale to another group, an ideal group for scapegoating. By means of this projective inversion, it is not we Christians who are guilty of murdering an individual in order to use his or her blood for ritual religious purposes (for Eucharist), but rather it is you Jews who are guilty of murdering an individual in order to use his or her blood for ritual religious purposes, making matzah" (Dundes 1991, 354). In order to confirm "cannibalistic" associations caused by the Eucharist, Dundes points out corresponding accusations put by the Romans against early Christians.

Although the projective aspect of the blood libel, stressed by Dundes, seems to be important indeed, the other points of his conception look controversial. First, like any psychoanalytical conception, it proceeds from very arbitrary definition of basic motivations evoking this or that "substitution" or "projection". Here such a motivation is seen in the guilt allegedly to be felt by Christians during the Eucharist, especially within the Easter period. Second, the idea by Dundes does not explain why do legends similar to the blood libel arouse outside Christian religious context. Even if we do not mention numerous stories of bloody rituals by Satanists (thus far they could be interpreted as inverted projection of Christian rituals too), it is worth to remember the legends of organ transplantation (so called "babyparts stories") having been widespread within the Third World countries in late 1980s (Campion-Vincent 1993) or Russian narratives of the same time describing "co-operators" cooking grills of childish meat (Novichkova 1990, 134—136). Finally, the theory by Dundes does not allow to understand, why is the motif of ritual infanticide so closely connected in certain cases with the motifs of orgy and/or incest?

The theme of cannibalism along with infanticide has a rich history in European cultural tradition. In fairy-tales and peasants’ mythological narratives, personages of "cannibalistic" nature are usually connected with the world of the dead. However, the more broad semiotic and historical perspective shows that the theme of cannibalism is most often used for marking anti-social or other-social, i. e. "alien" culture, "alien" customs, etc. The cannibal often represents not the "other" world, but the "other" society: although alien, he is still human being. If Europeans usually imagine "black cannibals", the African natives having faced European civilisation told each other stories about white man-eaters (Bogdanov 1999). "Litva" (Lithuanians), as a personage of North-Russian local legends imagined as other-worldly but human community, is characterised by specific tendency to fry or boil little Russian children. ⁴ Thus, the themes of cannibalism and infanticide are used in mass consciousness for interpretation of "alien" or "strange" social order, the latter being often characterised as a set of inverted norms and taboo habitual to the "own" culture of interpreters. The motifs of promiscuous sexual relations, orgies, and incest seem to play the similar role in this context.

In my opinion, the inversion of habitual cultural standards is the dominant adaptive mechanism in construction of the image of an "alien" social group. It is of special importance when society faces not only other-social, but other-confessional — "strange faith" (Campion-Vincent 1993, 247—248). It seems that the "immediate material" for such construction of inverted images comes from cultural forms which cause abnormal feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. Obviously, it is necessary to agree with Dundes concerning projective meaning of the blood libel, since cannibalistic associations of the Eucharist are witnessed not only by accusers of Christians but by Christians themselves. Medieval Christian hagiography is abundant in stories (so called "the legend of the eucharistic miracle) about a pagan or an unfaithful (most often a Jew or a Saracen) who, willing to understand the meaning of the Eucharist, comes to a church during liturgy and sees a priest killing an infant, cutting the body apart, and giving the meat and the blood to the flock. The miracle makes the unfaithful to become the Christian (Tunitskii 1907; Yatsimirskii 1910). It is likely, that such eucharistic connotations were projected into both the legend of Jewish ritual murder and the stories of bloody sacrifice amongst Western and Russian sectarians. However, the main reason here is not the guilt feeling stressed by Dundes but correlation of these motifs with traditional notions of other-social, of what "strange religion" can and must be. It is important that the rise of the legend in various social, national, and religious contexts can not be explained only by migrations of the whole subject or single motifs.

Nearly every ritual, being a liminal situation, inevitably presumes both positive and negative emotions of its participants. It is hardly, however, that feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, etc. experienced by performers of a ritual must be necessarily substituted and projected somewhere outside the group. In normal situation, the mechanism of stabilisation of such emotions is provided by the ritual structure itself. But when it is necessary to adapt "alien rituals" and "strange religion", the very "ritual fears" are broadly used by mass consciousness.

Notes

1. On the biography and ecclesiastic and literal activities by Ignatii Rimskii-Korsakov see: Abramov 1862, 156—157; Shliapkin 1891, 168—170; Ogloblin 1892, 286—291; Belobrova, Bogdanov 1993, 26—31.
2. I use the data presented in L. N. Novikova’s paper "Isolating Functions of Myth, and a Dialog of Cultures". The paper was delivered at the 4th conference "Mythology and Day-to-Day Life" (St.-Petersburg, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS, March 1—3, 2000).
3. Thompson 1955—1966, V 361: Christian child killed to furnish blood for Jewish rite (Hugh of Lincoln). See: Krov’ v verovaniakh i sueveriakh 1995; Gessen, Vishnitser, Karpin 1914; Trahtenberg 1943; Dundes 1991; Hsia 1988. Cf: Ashliman D. L. Anti-Semitic Legends (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/antisemitic.html).
4. Archives of Russian Geographic Society. Razriad XXXII. No. 33. L. 6. Archives of Ethnological Department of the European University at St.-Petersburg. Novgorod district, Khvoinaya region. 1997. PF-3.

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